Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

48

Tomas Hertl

Vegas Golden Knights Center

A career minus-73, and minus-28 of it in 54 games last season.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14SJS37151025+1143039815.315:20
2014-15SJS82131831-5163041459.014:33
2015-16SJS81212546+162630320210.415:58
2016-17SJS49101222-81410410010.017:13
2017-18SJS79222446-24161517512.618:06
2018-19SJS77353974+518111517619.919:01
2019-20SJS48162036-181622111713.718:27
2020-21SJS50192443+12741211217.019:08
2021-22SJS82303464-93060620514.619:56
2022-23SJS79224163-364260118312.019:17
2023-24SJS/VGK54172138-282261212413.720:29
2024-25 so far
Career718220268488-7325651636163713.417:58

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

54 games across San Jose and Vegas, 17 goals and 21 assists for 38 points, 6 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 22 penalty minutes, 20:29 a night and minus-28, with 2 game-winners. He took 46.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 813 minutes, the 30th percentile, and his ice went 24-44 against an expectation of 32.05-36.71.

Eight goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and seven more conceded than they called for. Twenty-four goals for and 44 against in 813 minutes is a twenty-goal hole across two clubs.

The Finesse Game

175 attempts at a median of 18 feet with 56 per cent of them from inside twenty and 17 per cent from beyond forty, 124 of those on goal, converted at 13.7 per cent against a career 13.44 across 1,637 shots.

220 career goals and 51 power-play goals in 718 games. An eighteen-foot median attempt at 6-3 and 220 pounds is a centre who works from the top of the crease outward; more than half his attempts came from inside twenty feet and a career 13.44 per cent across sixteen hundred shots says the rate is his.

The Physical Game

He is 6-3 and 220 and took 22 penalty minutes.

256 career penalty minutes in 718 games. He is heavy and plays through the middle of the ice, holding position in front of the net and taking the cross-checks rather than answering them.

The Intangibles

Seventeenth overall in 2012 by San Jose, eleven seasons, and Vegas is his second organisation.

A career minus-73 and 488 points in 718 games. He is 30, he spent ten seasons in San Jose, and the minus is almost entirely that.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 813 minutes

Expected goals
46.6%
30th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.3%
30th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 24 for, 44 against. Expected: 32.0 and 36.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
97th
Numbers
30th

The report ranks him 67 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 — 82 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 with SJS · 732 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
VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.6% — 4.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
813 minutes at five-on-five — 40th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
William Eklund50.9%42.7%38.8%
Mario Ferraro48.8%45.3%41.9%
Fabian Zetterlund44.7%47.6%40.9%

50.9% together, 42.7% for him apart and 38.8% for Eklund apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

175 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 17 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 57% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.