This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Vinnie Hinostroza
Pittsburgh Penguins Center
Eleven points in twenty-six games, and the fifth percentile of shot speed.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | CHI | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 8:41 |
| 2016-17 | CHI | 49 | 6 | 8 | 14 | -1 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 76 | 7.9 | 11:59 |
| 2017-18 | CHI | 50 | 7 | 18 | 25 | +5 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 86 | 8.1 | 13:49 |
| 2018-19 | ARI | 72 | 16 | 23 | 39 | -4 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 152 | 10.5 | 15:16 |
| 2019-20 | ARI | 68 | 5 | 17 | 22 | +1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 132 | 3.8 | 13:06 |
| 2020-21 | FLA/CHI | 26 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 12.1 | 12:16 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 62 | 13 | 12 | 25 | -11 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 92 | 14.1 | 13:52 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 26 | 2 | 9 | 11 | -1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 38 | 5.3 | 12:36 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 360 | 53 | 95 | 148 | -12 | 99 | 5 | 0 | 9 | 615 | 8.6 | 13:26 |
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
2 goals and 9 assists in 26 games — 11 points — at 12:36 a night for Buffalo. Minus-1, 38 shots at 5.3 per cent, one game-winner, 6 penalty minutes.
Twenty-six games is the joint second-shortest season of an eight-year career.
45.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 320 minutes, the 19th percentile, with his ice at 14-15 against an expectation of 14.15-16.84.
He started 42.5 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 19th percentile.
Three hundred and twenty five-on-five minutes is not enough to read as a season and should not be.
The Finesse Game
38 shots at a median of 29 feet. Inside twenty feet: seven shots on goal and one goal. From twenty to forty: 21 shots and one goal. Beyond forty: ten shots and none.
Thirty-eight shots produced two goals, which on a sample this size means nothing in either direction.
The useful number is the distribution: 16 per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet is the lowest share of any forward in this chapter. He shoots from the perimeter and passes from everywhere else, and nine of his eleven points were assists.
55 tracked attempts, 26 wrist and 21 snap, and 82.5 mph at the 5th percentile — one of the softest shots measured in this edition.
He is a distributor at 5-10 who has never had a shot and has 95 career assists against 53 goals.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 183 pounds. Top speed 22.9 mph at the 84th percentile with 1.8 bursts above twenty a game at the 83rd, on 2.07 miles a game at the 19th.
He is genuinely quick and plays very few minutes, which is the whole tracking line. The speed is the reason he has held a job for eight seasons at that size.
6 penalty minutes in 26 games and 99 in 360 career games. He avoids contact, which at 183 pounds is a method rather than a failing.
What the club is buying is a thirteenth forward who can skate and move the puck, and can be dressed on a fourth line without the shifts falling apart.
The Intangibles
A hundred and sixty-ninth overall in 2012, the sixth round, eight seasons, 360 games, 148 points across four clubs.
The 39 points he scored in Arizona in 2018-19 is the high-water mark and the two seasons after it produced 22 and 12. He has never played eighty games.
He is twenty-nine, on a depth contract, and what this file records is a useful thirteenth forward whose ceiling was established five years ago.
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.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
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.
“He is a distributor at 5-10 who has never had a shot and has 95 career assists against 53 goals.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 320 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.7%
- 25th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.8%
- 51st 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: 14 for, 15 against. Expected: 14.2 and 16.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 4 points of one another. 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.
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 — 61 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 · 26 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 87th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.85 a game
- Distance
- 2.07 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 82.5 mph
- 25th 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 with BUF · 320 minutes at five-on-five
- Dylan Cozens49%
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
- BUF took 49.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.7% — 4.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 320 minutes at five-on-five — 7th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Cozens | 45.9% | 45.4% | 50.6% |
| Casey Mittelstadt | 42.2% | 48.2% | 50.6% |
| Owen Power | 38.2% | 50.6% | 50.3% |
45.9% together, 45.4% for him apart and 50.6% for Cozens apart. Cozens was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
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
55 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 26 feet. 16% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.