This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
William Karlsson
Vegas Golden Knights Center
Fifty-eight point two per cent of the chances — the highest share on the club.
| 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 | VGK | 82 | 14 | 39 | 53 | +14 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 161 | 8.7 | 17:28 |
| 2023-24 | VGK | 70 | 30 | 30 | 60 | +15 | 22 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 175 | 17.1 | 17:36 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 685 | 170 | 247 | 417 | +116 | 108 | 29 | 12 | 25 | 1306 | 13.0 | 17:06 |
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
70 games, 30 goals and 30 assists for 60 points, 7 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 22 penalty minutes, 17:36 a night and plus-15, with 2 game-winners. He took 58.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 872 minutes — the 96th percentile and the highest share of anybody on this roster — and his ice went 46-32 against an expectation of 40.51-29.09.
Five goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and three more conceded than they called for. Thirty goals is his most since 2017-18 and the chance share is the best on the club by a point and a half.
The Finesse Game
234 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 42 per cent of them from inside twenty and 19 per cent from beyond forty, 171 of those on goal, converted at 17.1 per cent against a career 13.02 across 1,306 shots.
170 career goals and 247 assists in 685 games. He arrives at the net rather than shooting from distance — 42 per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet — and a career 13.02 per cent across thirteen hundred shots says the hands are real even when the totals are not.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 190 and took 22 penalty minutes.
108 career penalty minutes in 685 games. He is ordinary-sized and takes the hardest matchup on the club without fouling anybody; ten seasons at that assignment for a hundred and eight penalty minutes is the whole argument for how he defends.
The Intangibles
Fifty-third overall in 2011 by Anaheim, ten seasons, and Vegas is his third organisation.
A career plus-116 and 12 shorthanded goals in 685 games. He is 31, he scored 43 goals in this club’s first season and has never been near it since, and his ice has gone the right way in every one of the seven he has spent here.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
58.2% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 49.3% for his club in the minutes he sat: +8.9, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“He is ordinary-sized and takes the hardest matchup on the club without fouling anybody; ten seasons at that assignment for a hundred and eight penalty minutes is the whole argument for how he defends.”
“A career plus-116 and 12 shorthanded goals in 685 games.”
“He arrives at the net rather than shooting from distance — 42 per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet — and a career 13.02 per cent across thirteen hundred shots says the hands are real even when the totals are not.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 872 minutes
- Expected goals
- 58.2%
- 96th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.3%
- 66th 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: 46 for, 32 against. Expected: 40.5 and 29.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 1 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 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 70 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 85th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.24 a game
- Distance
- 2.82 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.9 mph
- 70th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 872 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 58.2% — 7.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 872 minutes at five-on-five — 46th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Amadio | 56.4% | 59.4% | 51.0% |
| Paul Cotter | 60.3% | 56.8% | 45.9% |
| Alex Pietrangelo | 53.6% | 60.4% | 49.5% |
56.4% together, 59.4% for him apart and 51.0% for Amadio apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Amadio behind.
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
234 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 30 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.