This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zachary L'Heureux
Nashville Predators Left Wing
63 penalty minutes in 62 games at 22, half his shots from inside 20 feet, and a junior suspension record the club drafted him knowing about.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | NSH | 62 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -6 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 6.4 | 12:03 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 62 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -6 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 6.4 | 12:03 |
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
62 games in his first full NHL season, 5 goals and 10 assists for 15 points at 12:03 a night, on 78 shots at 6.41 per cent. 63 penalty minutes. Minus-6.
A 50.7 per cent chance share is above the club average, and the on-ice goals were 29-31 against an expected 25.93-25.25. For a 22-year-old on the fourth line of the 30th-place club, breaking even on chances is a perfectly respectable first season and better than most of the men above him managed.
The Finesse Game
50 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 20 — he goes to the net and shoots from there, and 6.41 per cent says the release is not yet quick enough to beat a goaltender who is set.
The skating is adequate and the hands are better than fifteen points suggest. Whether there is a scoring forward in here is the open question, and twelve minutes a night on a fourth line has not tested it.
The Physical Game
197 pounds and he plays considerably heavier — hits everything, finishes late, and takes 63 penalty minutes in 62 games at twelve minutes a night, which would be over 100 in a real role.
On a club whose penalty kill was 2nd in the league and still spent 4:51 a game working, that is not a free attribute.
The Intangibles
The 27th pick in 2021, with a junior record that included multiple suspensions, and Nashville drafted him with all of it on the table.
The first NHL season passed without an incident of that kind, which is a more important result than the fifteen points and the one the organisation was actually watching for.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 639 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.7%
- 61st pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.5%
- 59th 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: 29 for, 31 against. Expected: 25.9 and 25.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 53 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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 · 639 minutes at five-on-five
- Cole Smith33%
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
- NSH took 49.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.7% — 1.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 639 minutes at five-on-five — 24th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Smith | 45.8% | 53.0% | 49.4% |
| Michael McCarron | 45.2% | 53.2% | 48.7% |
| Brady Skjei | 46.5% | 52.6% | 46.9% |
45.8% together, 53.0% for him apart and 49.4% for Smith apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
123 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 9 feet. 50% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.