This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Tommy Novak
Nashville Predators Center
Forty-three points in fifty-one games at twenty-five, from the 96th percentile in zone starts.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | NSH | 27 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 4.0 | 11:48 |
| 2022-23 | NSH | 51 | 17 | 26 | 43 | +5 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 93 | 18.3 | 14:39 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 78 | 18 | 32 | 50 | +1 | 10 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 118 | 15.3 | 13:40 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
17 goals and 26 assists in 51 games — 43 points — at 14:39 a night, with eight penalty minutes. Plus-5, 93 shots at 18.3 per cent, three game-winners.
Forty-three points in fifty-one games from fourteen minutes a night, after seven points in twenty-seven games the season before. He was twenty-five.
44.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 15th percentile, with his ice at 33-28 against an expectation of 26.13-33.16 — seven goals more at the offensive end than the chances deserved and five better at the defensive.
And the context that changes the reading: he started 63.7 per cent of his five-on-five shifts in the attacking zone, the 96th percentile — 181 attacking draws against 103 defensive ones. A 15th-percentile chance share from the top five per cent of zone starts is a bad number, and it is the argument against the season.
Two seasons, 78 games, 50 points.
The Finesse Game
93 shots at a median of 24 feet, 38 per cent from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 11 shots on goal, 1 goal. Inside forty: 81 shots, 16 goals, 19.75 per cent.
Eleven long shots in fifty-one games is a very disciplined chart, and 19.75 per cent from inside forty is a rate that does not survive a second look. 18.3 per cent overall on 93 shots is the kind of season that produces a contract and then a correction.
93.8 mph at the 70th percentile, on one slap shot, so the reading means nothing.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 190, and eight penalty minutes in fifty-one games.
Top speed 22.3 mph, the 48th percentile; bursts 0.9 a game, the 50th; 2.37 miles a game, the 35th. Every reading is average.
He is not physical and does not need to be at 63.7 per cent zone starts. What he does is find the soft ice between the circles and shoot from it, and on a club with almost no scoring that was enough to earn a job.
The Intangibles
Eighty-fifth overall in 2015 out of the US National Development Program, seven years to a full NHL job, and 43 points at twenty-five.
The case for him is 43 points and a good shot chart. The case against is 18.3 per cent shooting, a 15th-percentile chance share and the softest deployment of any Nashville regular.
This book expects fewer goals and more even ice next season, and thinks a twenty-five-point year is the honest projection.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
64% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 587 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.1%
- 15th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.8%
- 37th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 33 for, 28 against. Expected: 26.1 and 33.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 47 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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, 2022-23 · 51 games
- Top speed
- 22.3 mph
- 55th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.92 a game
- Distance
- 2.37 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.8 mph
- 87th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.9
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.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 587 minutes at five-on-five
- Yakov Trenin23%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- NSH took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.1% — 2.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 587 minutes at five-on-five — 21st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kiefer Sherwood | 41.8% | 45.6% | 52.2% |
| Luke Evangelista | 41.8% | 45.5% | — |
| Ryan McDonagh | 44.6% | 43.8% | 45.3% |
41.8% together, 45.6% for him apart and 52.2% for Sherwood apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
122 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.