Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

21

Scott Laughton

Philadelphia Flyers Center

Nine career shorthanded goals, 365 penalty minutes, and the hardest starts on a club that was sixth in the league.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13PHI500000000100.011:31
2014-15PHI31246-117000513.912:43
2015-16PHI7171421-234000858.210:26
2016-17PHI20000000040.010:15
2017-18PHI81101020-10420101089.311:07
2018-19PHI82122032-11530011309.214:51
2019-20PHI49131427+13260027417.614:36
2020-21PHI5391120+13390118910.115:25
2021-22PHI67111930-93502111010.016:25
2022-23PHI78182543-95053017010.618:17
2023-24PHI82132639-9691221677.815:39
2024-25 so far
Career60195143238-253656979989.514:26

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

All 82 games, 13 goals and 26 assists for 39 points, 1 on the power play, 2 shorthanded, 69 penalty minutes, 15:39 a night and minus-9, with 2 game-winners. He took 45.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,008 minutes, the 21st percentile and the worst share of any forward who played a thousand minutes for the club, and his ice went 37-53 against an expectation of 35.97-43.91.

One goal of finishing above what the chances were worth and nine more conceded than they called for. A 21st percentile chance share on a club that was sixth in the league is a checking centre being handed the other side of the ledger.

The Finesse Game

210 attempts at a median of 31 feet with 36 per cent of them from inside twenty and 33 per cent from beyond forty, 167 of those on goal, converted at 7.8 per cent against a career 9.52 across 998 shots.

143 career assists in 601 games. He is a straight-line forward who scores from the slot on rebounds and second chances, and 95 goals in 601 games is an honest statement of the hands. The 43-point season two years ago is the ceiling.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 190 and took 69 penalty minutes.

365 career penalty minutes in 601 games. He forechecks hard and finishes checks against men larger than he is, and eleven seasons of it in one city is the reason he is still here. There is nothing cheap in it.

The Intangibles

Twentieth overall in 2012, eleven seasons, all of them in Philadelphia, 238 points in 601 games and a career minus-25.

Nine career shorthanded goals in 601 games and two of them last season, on the fourth-best penalty kill in the league. He is 30, he has played for one club, and he has taken the starts nobody else on the roster wanted for a decade.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,008 minutes

Expected goals
45%
21st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.5%
20th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 37 for, 53 against. Expected: 36.0 and 43.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
65th
Numbers
21st

The report ranks him 44 points above where the numbers do. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 437 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1008 minutes at five-on-five

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, 2023-24

The club
PHI took 52.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.0% — 7.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 1,008 minutes at five-on-five — 59th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Joel Farabee45.5%44.8%54.6%
Travis Sanheim45.0%45.0%55.0%
Cam York46.3%44.5%54.2%

45.5% together, 44.8% for him apart and 54.6% for Farabee apart. Farabee was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.

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

210 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 33% from beyond forty.