This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Zack MacEwen
Philadelphia Flyers Center
The 2nd-most penalties taken of 393 forwards and the 4th-most drawn, on the 6th-lowest expected-goal share in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | VAN | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 7:11 |
| 2019-20 | VAN | 17 | 5 | 1 | 6 | +6 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 29.4 | 9:37 |
| 2020-21 | VAN | 34 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -2 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 3.2 | 8:38 |
| 2021-22 | PHI | 75 | 3 | 6 | 9 | -15 | 110 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 82 | 3.7 | 9:40 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 130 | 9 | 9 | 18 | -15 | 179 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 132 | 6.8 | 9:19 |
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
75 games, 3 goals and 6 assists at 9:40 a night, minus-15, 110 penalty minutes, 82 shots. Undrafted, and 130 NHL games with two clubs out of it. Nine minutes and forty seconds a night is the 5th-smallest workload of the 393 forwards who played forty games.
The Finesse Game
39.1 per cent of the expected goals is the 6th-lowest of the 393 and 42.5 per cent of the attempts the 12th-lowest. Five forwards in the league finished below him on the first of those and eleven on the second.
The chair is part of it and not most of it. He started 35.6 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 49th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts — hard, and forty-eight men had it harder.
Three goals from eighty-two shots is 3.7 per cent, the 2nd percentile, and 0.76 even-strength points per 60 is the 2nd as well. 6.79 shots per 60 is the 41st percentile, so the volume is ordinary and nothing goes in.
His shot is 97.5 mph, the 95th percentile among forwards. That figure and the scoring rate are not usually found in the same file.
The Physical Game
13.16 hits per 60 is the 95th percentile among forwards at 6-4 and 226 pounds, alongside 2.65 blocks per 60 at the 86th.
2.73 penalties taken per 60 is the 2nd-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, and 110 penalty minutes came out of seventy-five games at 9:40 a night.
He draws them too: 1.99 per 60 is the 4th-most of the same 393. The net is minus-0.75, the 2nd percentile — he is involved in more penalties per minute than almost anybody and loses the exchange by more than almost anybody. On a club that spent 4:41 a game short-handed, that is the bill.
The Intangibles
13.3 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 is the 96th percentile and 10.23 miles per 60 the 92nd, on a 22.7 mph top speed at the 70th.
A 226-pound fourth-line forward in the top tenth of the league for both sprints and distance is a genuinely unusual object. He is working extremely hard on the shortest shift in hockey.
He is 26, undrafted, with 130 games and eighteen points. The hitting, the sprinting and the shot are three real things and the penalty ledger and the possession shares are what they cost.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
29.9% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
36% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 9th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“13.16 hits per 60 is the 95th percentile among forwards at 6-4 and 226 pounds, alongside 2.65 blocks per 60 at the 86th.”
“2.73 penalties taken per 60 is the 2nd-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, and 110 penalty minutes came out of seventy-five games at 9:40 a night.”
“Undrafted, and 130 NHL games with two clubs out of it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 709 minutes
- Expected goals
- 39.1%
- 2nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 42.5%
- 5th 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: 20 for, 33 against. Expected: 22.5 and 35.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 51 points above where the numbers do. 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 61 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 · 75 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 80th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.15 a game
- Distance
- 1.65 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 97.5 mph
- 97th 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 · 709 minutes at five-on-five
- Nate Thompsonoff the roster28%
- Max Willman22%
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
- PHI took 46.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 39.1% — 6.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 709 minutes at five-on-five — 33rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Brown | 40.7% | 38.0% | 37.2% |
| Keith Yandle | 34.3% | 41.6% | 44.7% |
| Travis Sanheim | 39.6% | 38.8% | 49.7% |
40.7% together, 38.0% for him apart and 37.2% for Brown apart. Brown was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Brown 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
117 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 29% from beyond forty.