Returning regular · 2025-26

Gavin Brindley

Colorado Avalanche · C · R shot · age 21 at the dated snapshot.

Team: COL
Lane: C
Age: 21

Production and deployment

Official split unavailable

The live official report did not return a matching player row. The dated roster identity and lane screen remain available; production stays unknown.

Organizational context

10 C regulars in COL

The all-team median is 7. COL’s farm system ranks #32 in the maintained two-board consensus.

Thin lane

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?

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 0.756). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.

Unblocked shots91

Expected goals6.87.4% per shot

Goals6

Finishing−0.8goals above expected

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.

Share of chance quality53%2.92 expected goals for and 2.6 against per 60 minutes

Drive, this season only—at 5-on-5, over 7.7 hours: his share minus the club's share when he is off the ice · with its 80% band: -9.3 pts, 80% band -13.8 to -4.6 pts

Setup (chances his passes produced)0.23 xG3 primary assists; 0.076 expected goals per pass on average, 0.026 per 60. A pass to a tap-in counts more than a pass to a point shot.

Drive, offence—expected goals created per 60 with him on, minus the club without him

Drive, defence—expected goals suppressed per 60 with him on, against the club without him; positive means fewer chances allowed

Isolated impact (RAPM), offence / defence-0.08 / -0.08expected goals per 60 at 5v5 with every teammate, opponent, score state, venue and zone start held as columns of one ridge regression; ± 0.11 / 0.11 SE over 465 minutes

Offensive-zone starts52%of his faceoffs in either end zone; heavy offensive use lifts the numbers above

Chance share, score-and-venue adjusted (5v5)50%raw 50%; each shot weighted by the league's share in that score state and venue, so trailing at home is not mistaken for tilting the ice

Finish, shrunk (goals above expected per 100 shots)-0.5raw -1.3 on 91 shots; the data carries 13% of the weight, the league the rest (about 580 shots to weight the player one half)

Company (linemates / opponents)average / averageteammates +0.3, opponents -0.5 points of relative chance share, weighted by seconds shared

Start +/- (goals begun on his shift)183 of them were scored after he had changed off

On the ice for25 for, 22 againstthe plus/minus view, for comparison

Giveaways that led to a goal0his own turnovers inside the sequence, over 8.9 hours on the ice

Line or pairLine 4his rank by 5-on-5 ice time within the club, most common over 42 games

LinematesParker Kelly, Ross Coltonshared 36% and 23% of his 5-on-5 time

Matchup49% vs first lines49% against the other club's first line (sheltered)

Penalty kill1%1% of his club's penalty kill (rarely used) · 3 shorthanded minutes

Matchup rating (Elo)1477below the league middle · results by who he faced over 7.7 hours of 5-on-5; not enough time against top-rated opponents to say

Finish rating (Elo)1490below the league middle · 6 goals on 91 shots worth 7.2 expected; rated against the goalies and the chances actually faced, so the same goal counts more against a strong goalie from a poor spot

In the play-by-play28.9 per 60how often the league's feed names him on the puck (the moments a caller says a name): 62th percentile of forwards; the feed never records carries or passes that do not end in a goal

Power-play rating (Elo)1397below the league middle · 5.47 expected goals per 60 on the power play over 58 minutes, rated against the penalty-killers faced (league rate 8.27)

Shot-lane rating (Elo)1578above the league middle · 86 of 102 attempts got through (84%), rated against the defenders on the ice

Lane defence rating (Elo, unit)1483above the league middle · 155 of 461 attempts faced were blocked while he was on (34%); shared with the four others on the ice

Turnover balance-1.57 per 605 takeaways, 19 giveaways (1 in his own end) over 8.9 hours; recorded by the league's scorers, so counts differ by rink

Blocked shots and hits1.6 · 3.6 per 6014 blocks, 32 hits given, 75 taken, 4 penalties taken

Real points130 empty-net points left out · 6 goals, 3 primary and 4 secondary assists · 0 on the power play

How these measures are defined, and where they stop.

Advanced scoring · 2025-26

Goals, assists and plus/minus, weighted by what they changed

Every goal counts the win probability it added, scaled so the average goal is 1.0: a late tying goal counts several, a goal at 6-1 or into an empty net late counts little. Plus/minus also credits the players on the ice when the goal's sequence began.

Advanced goals (aG)10.5from 6 goals · 2 clutch (worth twice an average goal or more) · +5.2 above the chances they came from

Advanced primary assists (aA1)0.7from 3 primary assists

Advanced secondary assists (aA2)2.8from 4 secondary assists; kept apart, not guessed at

Advanced points14.0against 13 scoresheet points

Advanced plus/minus (a+/-)+7.6on the ice for 28 goals for and 24 against, each weighted by what it changed · 3 of the goals for began on his shift after he had changed off · +0.85 per 60

Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games

Gavin Brindley, season by season

Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (80% band), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.

Seasons on file22023-24 to 2025-26

Best season17.62025-26, age 21, 56 games

Latest season17.6expected 18.5 to 80.7

Measured labels0none that passed its test

his seasonexpected range from his earlier seasonsposition, 10th to 90th percentile by ageposition median

Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.

What the numbers found

No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.

Projection at the draft

At the draft the model expected 12 NHL hours through his age-25 season (80% band 0 to 77). He logged 9 hours, between the 10th percentile and the median. The model was applied to his draft class without being fitted or tested on it.

Every season

Season	Age	GP	Level	Expected (80%)
2023-24	19	1	0.0	−38.6 to 124.6
2025-26	21	56	17.6	18.5 to 80.7

Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29

Comparables at the same age

Who looked like this at 18 to 21

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.

Comparables found8

Went on to two or more NHL seasons6 of 8

Their later peak (adjusted pts/game)0.55median across the comparables; this player's own line is below

This player so far: age 15 NAPHL 16U 2.80 → age 16 USHL 0.43 → age 17 USHL 0.82 → age 18 NCAA 0.93 → age 19 NCAA 1.32 → age 20 AHL 0.33 → age 21 NHL 0.23

All 3 columns shown

Player	Distance (lower is closer)	What he did afterwards
Scott LaughtonC · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.05	age 22 AHL 0.30 → age 23 NHL 0.25 → age 24 NHL 0.39 → age 25 NHL 0.55 → age 26 NHL 0.38
Mason ShawC · matched at ages 18, 20, 21	0.05	age 22 AHL 0.33 → age 23 AHL 0.38 → age 24 NHL 0.29 → age 25 NHL 0.15 → age 26 AHL 0.23
Joseph VelenoC · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.05	age 22 NHL 0.23 → age 23 NHL 0.25 → age 24 NHL 0.35 → age 25 NHL 0.18 → age 26 NHL 0.08
Jordan KyrouR · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.06	age 22 NHL 0.64 → age 23 NHL 1.01 → age 24 NHL 0.92 → age 25 NHL 0.82 → age 26 NHL 0.85
Anthony ManthaR · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.06	age 22 NHL 0.60 → age 23 NHL 0.60 → age 24 NHL 0.72 → age 25 NHL 0.88 → age 26 NHL 0.50
Xavier BourgaultR · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.06	age 22 AHL 0.19 → age 23 AHL 0.37
Dillon DubeC · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.08	age 22 NHL 0.43 → age 23 NHL 0.41 → age 24 NHL 0.55 → age 25 NHL 0.16 → age 26 KHL 0.20
Raphael LavoieC · matched at ages 18, 19, 20, 21	0.08	age 22 AHL 0.34 → age 23 AHL 0.34 → age 24 AHL 0.29 → age 25 AHL 0.57

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.

Atlantic

Metropolitan

Central

Pacific