This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Simon Benoit
Toronto Maple Leafs Defense
Undrafted, 59 penalty minutes, and the ice he was on outscored its expectation by twenty-one goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | ANA | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 17:12 |
| 2021-22 | ANA | 53 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -5 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 2.2 | 14:06 |
| 2022-23 | ANA | 78 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -29 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 3.7 | 19:21 |
| 2023-24 | TOR | 64 | 1 | 4 | 5 | +7 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 1.9 | 17:14 |
| 2024-25 | TOR | 78 | 1 | 9 | 10 | +12 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 2.1 | 16:33 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 279 | 6 | 24 | 30 | -18 | 199 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 230 | 2.6 | 17:02 |
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
1 goal and 9 assists in 78 games — 10 points at 16:33 a night, plus-12, with 59 penalty minutes.
45.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 15th percentile — the worst mark on the roster. His ice went 59-45 against an expectation of 37.83-45.65 — twenty-one goals better than expected for, which is one of the largest finishing surpluses of any defenceman in this edition and is not a thing a third-pairing defenceman causes.
The Finesse Game
48 attempts in 78 games at a median of 55 feet with 77 per cent from beyond 40, and 1 goal. 6 goals in 279 career NHL games.
9 assists. The first pass is the whole puck game and it is the limitation: under pressure he goes off the wall or he loses it, and the club’s exits are worse when he is the man making them.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 210 and this is the entire case for him. He hits extremely hard, he clears the front of his own net, and he fights.
59 penalty minutes in 78 games, and 199 in 279 career games. He crosses the line, he answers everything, and on a club that has been called soft for a decade that is most of the argument.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, and he signed with Anaheim out of the Quebec junior league in 2018 — 279 NHL games since.
He is 27. A third-pairing defenceman with a 45.3 per cent chance share is a real problem, and the 59 penalty minutes are the reason the club keeps dressing him anyway.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,054 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.3%
- 15th pct
- Shot attempts
- 42.5%
- 4th 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: 59 for, 45 against. Expected: 37.8 and 45.6.
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 — 66 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 · 1054 minutes at five-on-five
- Jake McCabe12%
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
- TOR took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.3% — 4.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,054 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conor Timmins | 46.9% | 44.2% | 55.7% |
| William Nylander | 45.1% | 45.4% | 51.0% |
| Max Domi | 45.1% | 45.4% | 50.1% |
46.9% together, 44.2% for him apart and 55.7% for Timmins apart. Timmins 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
69 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 60 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.