Samuel Girard
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 51?
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 goals9 × 3+27
- proj assists27 × 1+27
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots121 × 0.1+12.1
- PIM32 × 0.05+1.6
- ice time (min)1602 × 0.01+16
- total84 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 16684 = 51/100
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 84 points is 51 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 (16 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
- Availability: played 11 of 14 for PIT — missed 3 games (2026-10-19, 2026-10-22, 2026-10-24).
- Ironman warning: multiple absences already — treat nightly projections for this player as low-confidence.
- Not on the NHL Status Report — recent absences were healthy scratches or coach's decisions unless a wire note says otherwise.
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.
- 8.7% shooting on 23 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 5.0% (782 shots before this season) — that's 0.8 goals above what his shot volume normally buys for him (1.2 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 6.0%, 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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | Predators | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 16:55 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 12.5% | 0.0% |
| 2017-18 | Avalanche | 68 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -8 | 6 | 1 | 12 | 0 | 17:42 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 4.0% | 0.0% |
| 2018-19 | Avalanche | 82 | 4 | 23 | 27 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 19:54 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 3.5% | 100.0% |
| 2019-20 | Avalanche | 70 | 4 | 30 | 34 | 1 | 17 | 1 | 13 | 0 | 21:19 | 1 | 0 | 96 | 4.2% | 0.0% |
| 2020-21 | Avalanche | 48 | 5 | 27 | 32 | 15 | 16 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 23:13 | 0 | 0 | 79 | 6.3% | 0.0% |
| 2021-22 | Avalanche | 67 | 5 | 23 | 28 | -4 | 20 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 21:39 | 1 | 0 | 79 | 6.3% | 0.0% |
| 2022-23 | Avalanche | 76 | 6 | 31 | 37 | -10 | 16 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 21:30 | 1 | 1 | 119 | 5.0% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Avalanche | 59 | 3 | 15 | 18 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 19:23 | 0 | 0 | 73 | 4.1% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Avalanche | 73 | 3 | 21 | 24 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 20:51 | 2 | 1 | 95 | 3.2% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Avalanche | 40 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17:41 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 9.7% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Penguins | 20 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18:56 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Penguins | 16 | 2 | 6 | 8 | -6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19:04 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 8.7% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Penguins | 84 | 9 | 27 | 36 | — | 39 | — | 0 | — | 19:04 | — | — | 112 | — | — |
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: Ryan McDonagh (2025-25) · Tony DeAngelo (2025-25) · Sean Durzi (2025-25) · Thomas Chabot (2025-25) · John Marino (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
Lines shown for the 9 of 10 recent games inside the league's tracking archive.
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 11 · @ SJS | |||||
| P1 08:57 | EV | Goal | Girard (Malkin, Letang) → 1-0 | Malkin · Brazeau · Koivunen Letang · Girard | Ostapchuk · Graf Trouba · Kesselring · Dickinson Askarov (G) |
| Oct 16 · @ COL | |||||
| P1 08:57 | EV | Assist | Rust (Crosby, Girard) → 2-0 | Crosby · Rust · Rakell Girard · Korczak | Lehkonen · MacKinnon · Necas Burns · Manson Blackwood (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Samuel over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaedan Korczak PIT | 99 | 10 | |
| Erik Karlsson PIT | 53 | 10 | |
| Rickard Rakell PIT | 53 | 10 | |
| Connor Dewar PIT | 53 | 10 | |
| Tommy Novak PIT | 49 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats