Sam Malinski
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 40?
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 goals2 × 3+6
- proj assists33 × 1+33
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots117 × 0.1+11.7
- PIM19 × 0.05+1
- ice time (min)1493 × 0.01+14.9
- total67 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 16667 = 40/100
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 defensemen in the NHL — an elite season scores about 166 points, and that is what 100 means. So 67 points is 40 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
- Shooting more: 2.0 SOG/game lately vs 1.3 before — volume is there even if points lag.
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 16 of 16 for COL.
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 underperforming O/U ▼ −1.9
- TRADE VALUE: BELOW PACE — mildly. Cheap production relative to the underlying play.
- 0.0% shooting on 25 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 5.6% (310 shots before this season) — that's 1.4 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (1.4 expected goals). under pace. His shrunk talent rate is 4.0%, worth PD −1.9 goals per 84 over/under his own standard.
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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | Avalanche | 23 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 14:14 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 9.7% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Avalanche | 76 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 8 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 15:57 | 0 | 0 | 115 | 4.3% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Avalanche | 82 | 8 | 32 | 40 | 43 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 17:37 | 1 | 0 | 164 | 4.9% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Avalanche | 19 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18:05 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Avalanche | 84 | 2 | 33 | 35 | — | 30 | — | 1 | — | 18:18 | — | — | 110 | — | — |
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 28 that is -1%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Jordan Spence (2025-25) · Sam Malinski (2025-25) · Tony DeAngelo (2025-25) · Sean Durzi (2025-25) · Brandt Clarke (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 10 · @ TOR | |||||
| P3 05:02 | EV | Assist | Landeskog (Kadri, Malinski) → 4-3 | Kadri · Nelson · Schwartz · Landeskog · Roy · Hughes Burns · Toews · Juulsen · Malinski | Tavares · Nylander · Roslovic · Matthews · Tverberg · Cowan Ekman-Larsson · Tanev · McCabe · Raddysh Bobrovsky (G) |
| Nov 3 · @ CBJ | |||||
| P1 10:57 | EV | Assist | Makar (MacKinnon, Malinski) → 1-2 | Lehkonen · MacKinnon · Necas Burns · Makar · Malinski | Coyle · Garland · Lomberg · Olivier · Sillinger · Belluz Severson · Werenski · Fabbro · Christiansen Talbot (G) |
| Nov 2 · @ CHI | |||||
| P2 19:49 | EV | Assist | Schwartz (Malinski, Hughes) → 4-2 | Kadri · Schwartz · MacKinnon · Roy · Hughes Makar · Malinski | Teravainen · Donato · Mangiapane · Greene · Nazar · Frondell Cole · Vlasic · Kaiser · Levshunov Knight (G) |
| Oct 28 · vs NJD | |||||
| P3 12:00 | EV | Assist | MacKinnon (Lehkonen, Malinski) → 4-1 | MacKinnon · Lehkonen · Necas Kulak · Malinski | Hischier · Meier · Evangelista Pesce · Hughes Allen (G) |
| P3 12:30 | EV | Assist | Schwartz (Malinski, Kadri) → 5-1 | Hughes · Schwartz · Kadri Kulak · Malinski | Bratt · Gritsyuk · Hughes Dillon · Chisholm Allen (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Sam over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devon Toews COL | 60 | 10 | |
| Brett Kulak COL | 53 | 10 | |
| Martin Necas COL | 52 | 10 | |
| Gabriel Landeskog COL | 51 | 10 | |
| Nazem Kadri COL | 50 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats