This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Samuel Helenius
Los Angeles Kings Center
6-6 and 225 pounds at 22, 7 points, and a fourth-line centre learning the job.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | LAK | 50 | 4 | 3 | 7 | +1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 29 | 13.8 | 8:39 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 50 | 4 | 3 | 7 | +1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 29 | 13.8 | 8:39 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
4 goals and 3 assists in 50 games for 7 points, plus-1, on 8:39 a night — the smallest role on the roster.
47.7 per cent at five-on-five, the 32nd percentile, over 405 minutes, which on this club is the worst share among the regulars. His on-ice goals were 11-9 against an expected 12-13.
The Finesse Game
Limited. 29 shots in 50 games and 4 goals, and 3 assists — there is no offensive game to project at present.
He plays simply and does not turn the puck over, which for a 22-year-old fourth-line centre is the requirement.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 225, and this is the case for him. He wins pucks below the goal line by weight, is difficult to move at the net front, and forechecks with real size.
25 penalty minutes over 50 games. The skating is the limitation and it is significant — he cannot keep pace with a fast transition, which is why the ice time is where it is.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick, a father who played, and a first NHL season at 22 on a club that plays a slow, heavy game that suits him.
The projection is a fourth-line centre who takes draws and kills penalties. Los Angeles is one of the few clubs whose style makes that a genuine role.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“is difficult to move at the net front”
“He wins pucks below the goal line by weight, is difficult to move at the net front, and forechecks with real size.”
“forechecks with real size”
“The projection is a fourth-line centre who takes draws and kills penalties.”
“a fourth-line centre who takes draws and kills penalties”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 405 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.7%
- 32nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.4%
- 28th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 11 for, 9 against. Expected: 11.7 and 12.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 50 games
- Top speed
- 21.6 mph
- 21st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.46 a game
- Distance
- 1.40 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.0 mph
- 78th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 405 minutes at five-on-five
- Trevor Lewisoff the roster41%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- LAK took 54.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.7% — 6.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 405 minutes at five-on-five — 12th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trevor Lewis | 41.0% | 51.5% | 46.4% |
| Joel Edmundson | 51.4% | 45.8% | 49.1% |
| Tanner Jeannot | 48.5% | 47.2% | 50.9% |
41.0% together, 51.5% for him apart and 46.4% for Lewis apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
48 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 29% from beyond forty.