This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
William Karlsson
Vegas Golden Knights Center
The 39th-best expected-goal share of 393 forwards, and nine goals fewer than the model asked for on his ice.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | ANA/CBJ | 21 | 3 | 2 | 5 | +3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 29 | 10.3 | 12:14 |
| 2015-16 | CBJ | 81 | 9 | 11 | 20 | -9 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 108 | 8.3 | 14:28 |
| 2016-17 | CBJ | 81 | 6 | 19 | 25 | +10 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 96 | 6.3 | 13:23 |
| 2017-18 | VGK | 82 | 43 | 35 | 78 | +49 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 184 | 23.4 | 18:43 |
| 2018-19 | VGK | 82 | 24 | 32 | 56 | +1 | 16 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 169 | 14.2 | 18:51 |
| 2019-20 | VGK | 63 | 15 | 31 | 46 | +11 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 138 | 10.9 | 18:52 |
| 2020-21 | VGK | 56 | 14 | 25 | 39 | +19 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 111 | 12.6 | 18:40 |
| 2021-22 | VGK | 67 | 12 | 23 | 35 | +3 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 135 | 8.9 | 18:17 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 533 | 126 | 178 | 304 | +87 | 76 | 20 | 9 | 21 | 970 | 13.0 | 16:59 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
67 games, 12 goals and 23 assists at 18:17 a night, plus-3, ten penalty minutes, 135 shots, one power-play goal and two short-handed. Fifty-third overall in 2011 by Anaheim — the second round — eight seasons, 533 games, 304 points.
The Finesse Game
56.6 per cent of the expected goals is the 39th-highest of the 393 forwards who played forty games, and 57.8 per cent of the attempts the 95th percentile. Nobody on this roster controlled a game better.
And his ice went 35-34 against an expectation of 44.16-33.91. Nine goals short in front. That is the largest gap between what a man’s minutes should have produced and what they did anywhere in this chapter, and it happened on the club that finished 26th in the league in finishing.
1.83 even-strength points per 60 is the 52nd percentile off 6.61 shots per 60 at the 36th, at 8.9 per cent — a 43-goal season in 2017-18 and nothing since above twenty-four.
Fifty-six per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet at a 23-foot median.
2.16 takeaways per 60 is the 83rd percentile.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 190 pounds, and ten penalty minutes in sixty-seven games.
0.245 penalties taken per 60 is the 24th-fewest of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at 1:32 a night short-handed.
2.06 hits per 60 is the 22nd percentile, and seventy-six penalty minutes across 533 career games is a man who has never been in anybody’s way.
The Intangibles
22.8 mph is the 75th percentile among the 365 tracked forwards, 6.0 bursts per 60 the 59th and 9.63 miles per 60 the 48th. Quick rather than fast, and ordinary in the other two.
The with-and-without is the interesting number. Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault played 1,488 attempts together at 56.6 per cent. Karlsson without him was 56.6 per cent. Marchessault without Karlsson was 51.0. Identical either way for one of them, and five and a half points of share for the other.
He is 29, in his sixth Vegas season, with a 43-goal year on his record and a 12-goal year beside it. The possession numbers say he is the best two-way centre on this roster and the goal column says he has not scored since 2018. Nine goals short of expectation is the case that those two facts are the same fact.
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
- 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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.15 penalty minutes a game over 67, 8th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“0.245 penalties taken per 60 is the 24th-fewest of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at 1:32 a night short-handed.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 944 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.6%
- 93rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 57.8%
- 97th 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: 35 for, 34 against. Expected: 44.2 and 33.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 3 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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, 2021-22 · 67 games
- Top speed
- 22.8 mph
- 83rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.82 a game
- Distance
- 2.93 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.0 mph
- 82nd 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 84.1
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
2021-22 · 944 minutes at five-on-five
- Reilly Smith53%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- VGK took 52.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.6% — 3.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 944 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Marchessault | 56.6% | 56.6% | 51.0% |
| Reilly Smith | 53.9% | 59.8% | 56.2% |
| Alex Pietrangelo | 55.2% | 57.5% | 51.3% |
56.6% together, 56.6% for him apart and 51.0% for Marchessault apart. Marchessault was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Marchessault 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
190 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.