Cole Smith
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 26?
Each row is one fantasy category turned into points over a full 84-game season. Add the rows up and that is his total fantasy worth.
- proj goals8 × 3+24
- proj assists12 × 1+12
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals5 × 0.5+2.5
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots98 × 0.1+9.8
- PIM37 × 0.05+1.9
- ice time (min)1136 × 0.01+11.4
- total62 pool points · an elite forward season scores 24262 = 26/100
Weights follow what the average fantasy league actually counts: goals at 3× assists (the universal core), power-play points and game-winners at half weight (common extra categories), OT goals, shots and PIM small (many leagues skip them), and ice time as a quiet availability bonus. The scale: add up a whole season of those categories and compare against the best forwards in the NHL — an elite season scores about 242 points, and that is what 100 means. So 62 points is 26 out of a perfect fantasy season at his position. Defensemen and forwards are graded on separate scales because the D slot can only be filled by a defenseman. Goals and assists come from the backtested season model; the rest ride your own season-to-date pace over 84 games (18 games so far — small sample, secondary lines will move as roles settle). Hits/blocks are excluded: the free NHL feeds don't publish full-season totals, and we don't invent them.
The Situation
- Off the net: 0.8 SOG/game lately vs 1.4 before — chances have dried up.
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 14 of 14 for CHI.
Every line is measured from our own boxscore ledger; absence reasons from the NHL Status Report and our transaction wire only — no insider guessing.
Finishing check on pace O/U ▼ −1.2
- TRADE VALUE: AT PACE — trade value is what the numbers say it is.
- 4.8% shooting on 21 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 9.7% (318 shots before this season) — that's 1.0 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (2.0 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 8.4%, worth PD −1.2 goals per 84 over/under his own standard.
- His goals track his shot volume almost exactly — what you see is what you have.
Model: goals vs shot volume vs live league position baselines; talent SH% is an empirical-Bayes shrinkage of the season…
His shooting talent is estimated by shrinking his season shooting percentage toward his league position mean in proportion to sample size (kappa pseudo-shots prior), then projecting the gap over 84 games at his current shot volume. Small samples stay near zero — the number only moves when the evidence does.
The method follows published hockey-analytics research: a shooter is judged against his own career shooting percentage, because a player's own career rate predicts his next goals better than any league average (“Expected by Whom? A Skill-Adjusted Expected Goals Model for NHL Shooters and Goaltenders,” arXiv:2511.07703). Thin careers (rookies) shrink toward the league mean for the position, and the season number is shrunk toward the player's own anchor with empirical-Bayes weights — Nandakumar & Jensen (2019), Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, doi:10.1146/annurev-statistics-030718-105202. This section is about the gap between luck and his pace, not talent.
Season stats
NHL regular-season totals, season by season. The 84-G proj line extends the current season with our public model — methodology in the caption below the table.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P | +/- | PIM | PPG | PPP | SHG | TOI/GP | GWG | OTG | S | S% | FOW% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | Predators | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5:57 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2021-22 | Predators | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8:50 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2022-23 | Predators | 69 | 4 | 13 | 17 | -3 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12:45 | 1 | 0 | 64 | 6.3% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Predators | 80 | 9 | 14 | 23 | 5 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 13:41 | 4 | 0 | 112 | 8.0% | 29.4% |
| 2024-25 | Predators | 71 | 4 | 8 | 12 | -15 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13:36 | 0 | 0 | 69 | 5.8% | 52.9% |
| 2025-26 | Predators | 42 | 6 | 4 | 10 | -7 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14:07 | 1 | 0 | 51 | 11.8% | 25.0% |
| 2025-26 | Golden Knights | 21 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11:38 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 11.1% | 50.0% |
| 2026-27 | Blackhawks | 19 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -7 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 13:33 | 1 | 0 | 21 | 4.8% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Blackhawks | 84 | 8 | 12 | 19 | — | 39 | — | 0 | — | 14:11 | — | — | 118 | — | — |
84-G proj — current pace blended with the player's own history (recent seasons weighted heaviest), mixed with a similarity projection from historical players with comparable profiles, then adjusted for the aging curve (league-average peak at 27; decline after) — at age 31 that is -3%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Zack MacEwen (2022-22) · Juho Lammikko (2021-21) · Kurtis MacDermid (2022-22) · Ben Meyers (2025-25) · Jordan Greenway (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 4 · @ FLA | |||||
| P3 09:31 | SH | Assist | #? (Smith, Mastro) → 2-3 | Smith Cole · Mastro | Verhaeghe · Reinhart · Tkachuk Jones · Balinskis Markstrom (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Cole over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Greene CHI | 73 | 10 | |
| Jordan Greenway CHI | 62 | 8 | |
| Alex Vlasic CHI | 53 | 10 | |
| Ian Cole CHI | 52 | 10 | |
| Wyatt Kaiser CHI | 48 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats