Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

91

Steven Stamkos

Nashville Predators Center

27 goals in his first season outside Tampa, 14 of them on the power play, and a minus-36 that is the worst figure in this edition.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2008-09TBL79232346-133990118112.714:56
2009-10TBL82514495-238241529717.220:33
2010-11TBL82454691+374170827216.520:12
2011-12TBL82603797+7661201230319.822:01
2012-13TBL48292857-432100215718.522:01
2013-14TBL37251540+91891512420.220:15
2014-15TBL82432972+249130626816.019:22
2015-16TBL77362864+338141821616.719:45
2016-17TBL1791120+3143015815.517:53
2017-18TBL78275986+1872150121212.718:46
2018-19TBL82455398+437192623419.218:18
2019-20TBL57293766+1422100617616.518:25
2020-21TBL38171734+41610019118.718:16
2021-22TBL814264106+24361601124117.418:29
2022-23TBL81345084-546140624014.219:01
2023-24TBL79404181-2134190626215.318:14
2024-25NSH82272653-3648140617415.518:00
2025-26 so far
Career11645826081190+10679228591350616.619:05

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

82 games, 27 goals and 26 assists for 53 points at 18:00 a night, on 174 shots at 15.52 per cent — the best conversion rate among the club’s regulars. Fourteen of the 27 goals came on the power play, which leaves thirteen at even strength across a full season.

Minus-36 is the worst figure in this edition, and the underlying picture is bad without being that bad: a 47 per cent chance share, on-ice goals of 22-44 against an expected 41.53-46.79. His line finished nineteen goals short of what it created and two goals worse than it deserved at the other end. This was the first year of the four-year contract signed in July 2024, after sixteen seasons and two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay.

The Finesse Game

The one-timer from the left circle remains among the two or three most dangerous shots in hockey, and fourteen power-play goals at 35 is the proof. Everything about it is intact — the weight transfer, the release without a windup, the willingness to shoot into a lane that has not fully opened.

At even strength almost nothing else is. 28 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet and 18 per cent from beyond 40, which is a man taking what the slot gives him rather than a man generating it. He no longer separates from a defenceman with the puck and he does not win a race to a loose one. The hockey sense is exceptional and it is now doing all of the work.

The Physical Game

193 pounds and never a physical player, and at 35 the puck protection that used to compensate has thinned. He is moved off possession by defencemen who could not have done it five years ago.

48 penalty minutes is high for him, and most of it is stick fouls — the signature of a man arriving late.

The Intangibles

82 games at 35, which very few expected, and a fourteen-goal power-play season on a unit that finished 9th in the league.

He was signed to be the settling presence in a room full of new arrivals, and instead he became the most visible face of the worst season in the club’s modern history. Three years remain. The power play is where this contract gets earned; the even-strength minutes are the question nobody has answered.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,072 minutes

Expected goals
47%
24th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.3%
35th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 22 for, 44 against. Expected: 41.5 and 46.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
36th
Numbers
24th

The two rank him within 12 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 357 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 · 1072 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
NSH took 49.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.0% — 2.2 below the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,072 minutes at five-on-five — 71st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jonathan Marchessault48.8%45.3%47.2%
Filip Forsberg47.5%46.5%47.8%
Brady Skjei45.9%47.6%47.2%

48.8% together, 45.3% for him apart and 47.2% for Marchessault apart. He was worse away from Marchessault, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Marchessault 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

255 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 28 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 28% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.