William Karlsson
Vegas Golden Knights Center
The 95th percentile of chances from a defensive centre, and 4 penalty minutes in 53 games.
| 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 | VGK | 53 | 9 | 20 | 29 | +17 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 119 | 7.6 | 17:01 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 738 | 179 | 267 | 446 | +133 | 112 | 29 | 14 | 29 | 1425 | 12.6 | 17:06 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
9 goals and 20 assists in 53 games — 29 points at 17:01 a night, plus-17, with 2 shorthanded goals, 4 game-winners and 4 penalty minutes. He missed a third of the season.
56.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 95th percentile. His ice went 27-26 against an expectation of 30.78-23.63 — four goals of scoring missing and three conceded above expectation, on the club’s shutdown line.
The Finesse Game
119 attempts at a median of 28 feet with 32 per cent from inside 20, converting at 7.6 per cent for 9 goals. He scored 43 in a season once, in 2017-18, and has not been near it since.
20 assists in 53 games. The value now is positional: he wins the draw that begins the shift, he supports the puck, and he is the reason the line spends the shift in the other end.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 190 and he defends with his stick and his positioning rather than with contact. He blocks shots and he does not initiate much.
4 penalty minutes in 53 games is among the lowest totals of anybody in this edition. He does not foul, he does not retaliate, and he is a first-unit penalty killer on the 4th-best unit in the league.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick of Anaheim in 2011 who was taken in the expansion draft and became a 43-goal scorer in his first season here — 738 games and 446 points, and a Stanley Cup.
He is 32. He has played all nine seasons of this franchise’s existence and there are very few of those left.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 684 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.6%
- 95th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.1%
- 92nd 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: 27 for, 26 against. Expected: 30.8 and 23.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 15 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 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
2024-25 · 684 minutes at five-on-five
- Brett Howden36%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.6% — 3.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 684 minutes at five-on-five — 27th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Howden | 51.0% | 59.4% | 51.3% |
| Noah Hanifin | 60.0% | 54.7% | 54.9% |
| Alex Pietrangelo | 58.1% | 55.8% | 52.8% |
51.0% together, 59.4% for him apart and 51.3% for Howden apart. He was better away from Howden, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Howden.
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
176 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 28% from beyond forty.