Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

18

Steven Lorentz

Toronto Maple Leafs Center

Six-foot-four, five game-winning goals from a fourth line, and 9 penalty minutes in 80 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21CAR45268+18001405.010:26
2021-22CAR678513080018010.010:53
2022-23SJS8010919-18161101119.011:50
2023-24FLA38123-910001303.38:47
2024-25TOR8081119+690157610.510:33
2025-26 so far
Career310293362-20511283378.610:43

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

8 goals and 11 assists in 80 games — 19 points at 10:33 a night, plus-6, with a shorthanded goal and 5 game-winning goals on 9 penalty minutes.

51.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 62nd percentile, across 711 minutes. His ice went 36-30 against an expectation of 23.96-22.99 — twelve goals better than expected for and seven worse against, on a fourth line.

The Finesse Game

76 attempts at a median of 28 feet with 39 per cent from inside 20, converting at 10.5 per cent. Eight goals from a fourth-line winger at ten and a half minutes a night is a good return.

11 assists in 80 games. There is no creation and there is not meant to be; five game-winning goals from a man playing this little is a coincidence and a pleasant one.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 219 and he forechecks harder than anybody on the fourth line. He finishes checks, he protects the puck below the goal line, and he is difficult to move.

9 penalty minutes in 80 games is among the lowest totals of any regular in this edition, which for a player who hits this much is remarkable. He does not foul and he is a first-unit penalty killer.

The Intangibles

A seventh-round pick in 2015 — 186th overall — and 310 games and 62 points across four organisations, with a Stanley Cup ring from Florida in 2024.

He is 29 and Toronto signed him for the fourth line the summer after he won it. On a club that spent 5:04 a game shorthanded, a forward who takes nine penalty minutes in a season is worth more than the contract.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 711 minutes

Expected goals
51%
63rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.3%
27th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 36 for, 30 against. Expected: 24.0 and 23.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
36th
Numbers
63rd

The numbers rank him 27 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 711 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
TOR took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.0% — 0.8 above the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 711 minutes at five-on-five — 29th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
David Kampf50.5%51.6%38.6%
Morgan Rielly49.3%51.9%49.7%
Oliver Ekman-Larsson55.9%48.8%48.6%

50.5% together, 51.6% for him apart and 38.6% for Kampf apart. Kampf was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Kampf 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

106 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.