Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

5

Tom Willander

Vancouver Canucks Defense

21 years old, 70 games, and the 3rd percentile.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2025-26VAN7051621-2328000598.516:59
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—7051621-2328000598.516:59

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

5 goals and 16 assists in 70 games — 21 points, minus-23, at 16:59 a night with 28 penalty minutes. His first professional season.

He turned 21 in February.

The Finesse Game

100 unblocked attempts from a median of 55 feet, 74 per cent from beyond 40, 5 goals.

16 assists in 70 games is a fair rookie return and most of it is the first pass rather than anything created.

The skating is the tool — a long, easy stride that defends the rush well — and it is the reason he was taken 11th overall.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 180 pounds, and thin. 28 penalty minutes.

He is moved off the front of his own net and does not win board battles against men. There is a great deal of room on the frame.

The Intangibles

40.5 per cent of the expected goals, 2nd percentile, and 42.8 per cent of the shot attempts, fourth, across 1,048 minutes, with the chances 34.0 for and 50.1 against.

That is a 15-goal deficit in expected goals, and it is among the worst figures any defenceman posted last season.

3 points in his last 10. He is 21, and this club gave 2 defencemen aged 19 and 20 a combined 2,311 minutes while conceding more goals than anybody. Whatever those numbers mean, they do not mean these 2 are bad players.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,048 minutes

Expected goals
40.5%
3rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
42.8%
4th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 34 for, 58 against. Expected: 34.0 and 50.1.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
33rd
Numbers
3rd

The report ranks him 30 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 70 games

Top speed
22.5 mph
84th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6

Bursts over 20 mph
0.90 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.45 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
86.8 mph
31st pct

one shot; the league's average best is 88.9

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

3

points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 2 assists, 13 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1048 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, 2025-26

The club
VAN took 43.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 40.5% — 3.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,048 minutes at five-on-five — 66th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Marcus Pettersson41.3%39.4%43.3%
Evander Kane40.0%40.6%44.7%
Drew O'Connor44.6%39.0%45.2%

41.3% together, 39.4% for him apart and 43.3% for Pettersson apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

100 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.