Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

24

Scott Mayfield

New York Islanders Defense

Plus-18 — the best figure on the club by thirteen — at the 24th percentile in chance share.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14NYI5000-3700070.017:22
2015-16NYI6101-411000425.017:07
2016-17NYI25279-135000395.114:08
2017-18NYI4721012-645000583.517:51
2018-19NYI7941519+18680101043.918:44
2019-20NYI675813+853001985.119:57
2020-21NYI5621315+238000792.519:29
2021-22NYI6131518-555002803.819:46
2022-23NYI8261824+8830011195.021:02
2023-24NYI41055-735000360.018:46
2024-25NYI66369+1827010515.917:00
2025-26 so far
Career5352897125+284570246754.218:54

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

66 games, 3 goals and 6 assists for 9 points at 17:00 a night, on 51 shots at 5.88 per cent. 27 penalty minutes. Plus-18, the best figure on the roster by thirteen.

His chance share was 47.1 per cent, the 24th percentile in the league, and his on-ice goals were 34-32 against an expected 34-38.19. He scored exactly what the chances said and conceded six fewer than expected, which is goaltending, and the plus-18 is what a third-pair defenceman collects when he is on the ice for very few shorthanded goals and a number of empty-net ones. It is the least informative number in this chapter.

The Finesse Game

67 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet at a median of 50, and 11 per cent from inside 20. 51 attempts in 66 games is close to a defenceman who does not shoot.

The first pass is safe and slow and he will rim the puck rather than hold it. There is no carrying game and there never has been.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 215 and this is the whole of it. He clears his crease by force, finishes every check available, and blocks shots without hesitation.

27 penalty minutes in 66 games is a modest number for a defenceman who plays this heavily, and it reflects a man whose reach means he does not have to grab.

The Intangibles

A second-round pick and twelve seasons in one organisation, all of it in a third-pair role that he has never lost and never outgrown.

He is 33 and signed for three more years. The plus-18 will be quoted and the 24th percentile will not, and the second number is the one that describes what happens when he plays against a real line.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 928 minutes

Expected goals
47.1%
24th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.1%
25th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 34 for, 32 against. Expected: 34.0 and 38.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
4th
Numbers
24th

The numbers rank him 20 points above where the report does. 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 59 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

2024-25 · 928 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, 2024-25

The club
NYI took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.1% — 2.8 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 928 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jean-Gabriel Pageau53.3%44.2%51.6%
Bo Horvat49.4%46.1%50.6%
Anders Lee51.1%45.4%51.5%

53.3% together, 44.2% for him apart and 51.6% for Pageau apart. He was worse away from Pageau, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Pageau did.

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

85 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.