Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

37

Yanni Gourde

Tampa Bay Lightning Center

Undrafted, 5-9, and back where he won two Stanley Cups after a deadline trade from Seattle.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16TBL2011+1200007:19
2016-17TBL20628-180113020.015:22
2017-18TBL82253964+345071513618.416:09
2018-19TBL80222648+96651513016.915:50
2019-20TBL70102030-5491251109.114:04
2020-21TBL56171936+104420411814.417:04
2021-22SEA74212748-134531312716.518:29
2022-23SEA81143448+23763121419.917:08
2023-24SEA80112233-11620211567.017:27
2024-25SEA/TBL5772431-152002759.316:03
2025-26 so far
Career602133214347+4645421928102313.016:29

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

7 goals and 24 assists in 57 games across Seattle and Tampa Bay — 31 points at 16:03 a night, with 52 penalty minutes.

52.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 78th percentile, across 762 minutes. His ice went 35-28 against an expectation of 30.38-27.09, which is a third line that won both sides of the ledger.

The Finesse Game

75 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 45 per cent from inside 20, and 7 goals at a 9.3 per cent rate. The finishing has gone and the location has not.

24 assists in 57 games is the real number. He plays a quick, low game below the goal line, he finds the man arriving late, and the hockey sense has never depended on the legs.

The Physical Game

5-9 and 173 pounds and among the most irritating players in the league. He forechecks first, he hits men fifty pounds heavier, and he talks.

52 penalty minutes in 57 games is a very high rate for a third-line centre and a share of it is the second penalty in a sequence he started. He draws the response and that is a large part of the job.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, and he played four full seasons in the American League and the ECHL before an NHL game at 25 — 602 games and 347 points, with two Stanley Cups here.

He was taken in the expansion draft in 2021, spent four seasons in Seattle, and was traded back at the deadline in March. He is 33.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 762 minutes

Expected goals
52.9%
78th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
52.7%
80th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 35 for, 28 against. Expected: 30.4 and 27.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
78th

The two rank him within 6 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 — 79 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 with SEA · 483 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, 2024-25

The club
TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.9% — 2.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
762 minutes at five-on-five — 33rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brandon Tanev53.9%52.2%42.9%
Tye Kartye53.6%52.6%52.7%
Adam Larsson63.3%50.0%43.8%

53.9% together, 52.2% for him apart and 42.9% for Tanev apart. Tanev was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Tanev 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

122 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.