This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Tommy Novak
Nashville Predators Center
The 97th percentile of chances at 27, and a career 15.58 per cent that nobody expected.
| 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 | NSH | 71 | 18 | 27 | 45 | -3 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 113 | 15.9 | 14:12 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 149 | 36 | 59 | 95 | -2 | 18 | 12 | 0 | 4 | 231 | 15.6 | 13:55 |
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
71 games, 18 goals and 27 assists for 45 points, 6 on the power play, 8 penalty minutes, 14:12 a night and minus-3. He took 58.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 841 minutes, the 97th percentile, and his ice went 40-34 against an expectation of 42.04-29.49.
Two goals of scoring that did not arrive and five more conceded than the chances called for. That 58.8 per cent is the second-best chance share on the club and it came at fourteen minutes a night, which is an argument for more of them.
The Finesse Game
113 shots at a median of 26 feet with 36 per cent from inside 20, converted at 15.9 per cent against a career 15.58 across 231 shots.
59 career assists in 149 games. A 15.58 per cent career conversion across three seasons is a genuinely high rate and 231 shots is not yet enough to be sure of it. He is a passer first and the shot has been better than anybody projected for a third-round pick who took six years to arrive.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 190 and avoids contact.
8 penalty minutes in 71 games is almost nothing. He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and does not kill penalties.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2015 out of St. Paul, three seasons, and 95 points in 149 games, all of it for one organisation.
He is 27 and arrived at 25 after six years in college and the minors. The chance share says he should be playing seventeen minutes and the club has just signed two forwards who will take them.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 841 minutes
- Expected goals
- 58.8%
- 97th pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.2%
- 93rd 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: 40 for, 34 against. Expected: 42.0 and 29.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 31 points above where the report does. 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 415 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 841 minutes at five-on-five
- Kiefer Sherwoodnow VAN20%
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
- NSH took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.8% — 6.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 841 minutes at five-on-five — 43rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luke Evangelista | 59.9% | 56.2% | 51.8% |
| Roman Josi | 56.2% | 60.8% | 53.8% |
| Ryan McDonagh | 67.6% | 55.0% | 52.3% |
59.9% together, 56.2% for him apart and 51.8% for Evangelista 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
180 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 36% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.