Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

43

Tom Wilson

Washington Capitals Right Wing

One thousand four hundred and thirty-two career penalty minutes — the largest total in this edition.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14WSH823710+1151100634.87:56
2014-15WSH6741317-1172000795.110:56
2015-16WSH8271623+3163001997.112:55
2016-17WSH8271219+9133000957.412:56
2017-18WSH78142135+1018701112311.415:59
2018-19WSH63221840+1112832213016.918:09
2019-20WSH68212344-39351515413.618:16
2020-21WSH47132033+1964148315.716:32
2021-22WSH78242852+139842515115.918:35
2022-23WSH3313922-13784018215.817:37
2023-24WSH74181735-1913352316910.718:06
2024-25 so far
Career754146184330+12143226922122811.914:58

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

74 games, 18 goals and 17 assists for 35 points, 5 on the power play, 2 shorthanded, 133 penalty minutes, 18:06 a night and minus-19, with 3 game-winners. He took 50.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,007 minutes, the 56th percentile, and his ice went 25-46 against an expectation of 40.19-39.50.

Fifteen goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and seven more conceded than they called for. Twenty-five goals for in 1,007 minutes on an even chance share is one of the two largest finishing shortfalls in this chapter and it has nothing to do with how he played.

The Finesse Game

239 attempts at a median of 24 feet with 45 per cent of them from inside twenty and 24 per cent from beyond forty, 165 of those on goal, converted at 10.7 per cent against a career 11.89 across 1,228 shots.

146 career goals and 26 power-play goals in 754 games. He goes to the net front on the power play and finishes from there; 45 per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet and a career 11.89 per cent says the hands are better than the reputation suggests.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 225 and took 133 penalty minutes — the third-largest total in this edition.

1,432 career penalty minutes in 754 games — the largest total of anybody in this edition. He hits everything that moves, fights when the club needs one, and takes the retaliation penalty when somebody goes after a teammate; almost two penalty minutes a game across eleven seasons is a way of playing, not a bad month.

The Intangibles

Sixteenth overall in 2012 by Washington, eleven seasons, one organisation, and 330 points in 754 games.

A career plus-12 and 9 shorthanded goals in 754 games. He is 30, he has played every one of his 754 NHL games for this club, and he has more career penalty minutes than anybody in this edition, in five hundred and fifty-seven fewer games than the man behind him.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,007 minutes

Expected goals
50.4%
56th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.4%
58th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 25 for, 46 against. Expected: 40.2 and 39.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
98th
Numbers
56th

The report ranks him 42 points above where the numbers do. 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 84 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

2023-24 · 1007 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, 2023-24

The club
WSH took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.4% — 3.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,007 minutes at five-on-five — 58th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Alex Ovechkin49.1%52.1%44.1%
Dylan Strome59.4%40.7%50.7%
John Carlson54.1%47.6%45.4%

49.1% together, 52.1% for him apart and 44.1% for Ovechkin apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Ovechkin behind.

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

239 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.