Every Canucks player ranked by hardest shot from new NHL data
The NHL published new tracking stats and they reveal fascinating facts about the Vancouver Canucks.
Some of the most interesting findings have to do with each player’s hardest shot.
Elias Pettersson shocked the NHL by winning the league’s hardest shot competition at last year’s All-Star Skills Competition. He fired a 103.2 mph howitzer to become only the second forward in the last 22 years to win the competition. However, he is not the owner of the hardest shot by a Canuck this year.
Through five games, Pettersson ranks fourth among all Canucks and second among forwards when it comes to the hardest shot. His best was 90.61 mph against the Edmonton Oilers on opening night.
It’s the new acquisition, Filip Hronek, that has the fastest shot by any Canuck so far. He unleashed a 93.61 mph shot in the second period of the recent game against the Florida Panthers. That’s in the 94th percentile among defencemen when it comes to shot speed.
The player with the weakest top shot speed so far is Pius Suter, whose biggest shot is a mere 63.77 mph.
Here is a full list of each player’s hardest shot so far this year, ranked from fastest to slowest.
| Name | Shot speed (mph) |
| Filip Hronek | 93.61 |
| Tyler Myers | 92.19 |
| Brock Boeser | 91.87 |
| Elias Pettersson | 90.61 |
| J.T. Miller | 86.39 |
| Nils Hoglander | 85.82 |
| Conor Garland | 84.22 |
| Sam Lafferty | 84.05 |
| Quinn Hughes | 83.9 |
| Noah Juulsen | 83.4 |
| Mark Friedman | 82.61 |
| Andrei Kuzmenko | 81.67 |
| Phil Di Giuseppe | 80.62 |
| Ian Cole | 80.56 |
| Carson Soucy | 80.4 |
| Ilya Mikheyev | 77.89 |
| Jack Studnicka | 75.11 |
| Akito Hirose | 72.42 |
| Dakota Joshua | 67.37 |
| Anthony Beauvillier | 67.32 |
| Pius Suter | 63.77 |
All of these findings come from a new platform put out by the league. The NHL has released NHL Edge, a brand-new platform that displays the results of player and puck tracking across the league.
While the interface still has some bugs, there is a lot of interesting information available. As more data comes in from this season, the findings should only become more accurate.
The hardest shot statistics are far from the only numbers available on the platform.
Another interesting tidbit can be found in the J.T. Miller skating section. The Canucks forward ranks in the 92nd percentile among all forwards in top skating speed at 22.44 mph, achieved in the third period against the Philadelphia Flyers. He also has had 15 speed bursts over 20 mph, placing him in the 94th percentile among forwards.
Some statistics help to confirm findings that feel obvious. For example, Quinn Hughes ranks in the 91st percentile of all defencemen in skating distance, covering 17.20 miles so far this year.