Returning regular · 2025-26
Cole Smith
Chicago Blackhawks · RW · L shot · age 30 at the dated snapshot.
- Team
- CHI
- Lane
- RW
- Age
- 30
Production and deployment
How the points were built
Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.
Organizational context
2 RW regulars in CHI
The all-team median is 3.5. CHI’s farm system ranks #2 in the maintained two-board consensus.
Questions a GM still has to answer
- How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
- Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
- Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
- What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?
Contract · CHI
$3.00M cap hit
2026–27 through 2028–29. Reported
Cup signal › Costs more per point than the position median, but earns it with five-on-five creation or penalty-kill work.
- He averaged 13:17 a night on a $3.00M cap hit. Part of this reading is deployment, not only the player.
- He kills penalties (1:57 a night), which points do not capture.
- 24 real points at this cap hit would pass the cost test (he had 7, after 5 empty-net left out).
Shot quality · 2025-26
Expected goals
CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC 0.757). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.
CapOrCup measures · 2025-26
What happens while he plays
Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.
Comparables at the same age
Who looked like this at 27 to 30
Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.
This player so far: age 16 USHS-MN 0.92 → age 17 USHS-MN 1.63 → age 18 USHS-MN 1.78 → age 19 MJHL 0.60 → age 20 MJHL 1.13 → age 21 NCAA 0.24 → age 22 NCAA 0.27 → age 23 NCAA 0.43 → age 24 NCAA 0.53 → age 25 AHL 0.43 → age 26 AHL 0.69 → age 27 NHL 0.25 → age 28 NHL 0.29 → age 29 NHL 0.17 → age 30 NHL 0.24
| Player | Distance (lower is closer) | What he did afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Zemgus GirgensonsC · matched at ages 28, 29, 30 | 0.04 | age 31 NHL 0.07 → age 32 NHL 0.27 |
| Radek FaksaC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30 | 0.04 | age 31 NHL 0.21 → age 32 NHL 0.29 |
| Scott SabourinR · matched at ages 27, 29, 30 | 0.06 | age 31 AHL 0.21 → age 32 AHL 0.17 → age 33 NHL 0.19 |
| Nathan WalkerL · matched at ages 28, 29, 30 | 0.07 | age 31 NHL 0.22 → age 32 NHL 0.24 |
| Garnet HathawayR · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30 | 0.10 | age 31 NHL 0.27 → age 32 NHL 0.21 → age 33 NHL 0.31 → age 34 NHL 0.04 |
| Nicolas DeslauriersL · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30 | 0.10 | age 31 NHL 0.16 → age 32 NHL 0.15 → age 33 NHL 0.07 → age 34 NHL 0.10 → age 35 NHL 0.04 |
| Tyler PitlickC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30 | 0.10 | age 31 NHL 0.26 → age 32 NHL 0.12 → age 33 AHL 0.35 → age 34 NHL 0.06 |
| Dominik ShineR · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30 | 0.10 | age 31 AHL 0.34 → age 32 NHL 0.17 |
Reading it
If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.
Goal archive ·
Every goal, with the league's video
Preseason, regular season and playoffs are kept apart. Each row links to the NHL's own highlight page; no video is hosted here. Where a clip has been reviewed, the reading of it is a model judgement of the frames, not a measurement.
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Availability
Games missed
The NHL publishes no injury feed. This counts games his club played while he did not dress, for any reason: injury, illness, a healthy scratch, a suspension or a trade gap. No cause is claimed.
Either side of that absence: 0.92 points per 60 in the ten games before, 0.8 in the ten after. A rate change over a small sample, not evidence of a lingering injury.
NHL EDGE tracking · 2025-26
Speed, shot and ice
From the NHL's own player-tracking data. Percentiles are the NHL's: the share of the league below this player.