2024-25 Season in Review: Noel Acciari

A rugged bottom-six forward turned in another satisfactory performance in 2024-25.

Vitals

Player: Noel Acciari
Born: Dec. 1, 1991 (33 years old)
Height: 5-foot-11
Weight: 209 pounds
Hometown: Johnston, Rhode Island, U.S.
Shoots: Right
Draft: Undrafted
2024-25 Statistics: 79 games played; five goals; seven assists; 12 points
Contract Status: Entering year three of a three-year, $6 million contract; will have a cap hit of $2 million for the 2025-26 season.
History: 2023-24 (50% C, 27% D)

Monthly Splits

Yahoo! Sports

Story of the Season

In sports, you need the unsung heroes to do the dirty work, and the playmakers can reap those rewards with the SportsCenter highlights.

Noel Acciari is one of those unsung heroes.

Not flashy by any stretch of the imagination, and never one to produce loads of offense, Acciari’s meal ticket is his ability to play defensive hockey, kill penalties, block shots, and deliver hits.

Whether deployed as the fourth-line center or right wing over the 79 games he played this season, Acciari remained a solid if underwhelming presence in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ forward group.

He was second on the team in faceoff victories (321), winning 53.7% of his draws. Acciari also led the team in the hits category by a wide margin, racking up 180. The player with the second-most hits on the team was Kris Letang with 120. Acciari was also credited with 100 blocked shots.

The 33-year-old’s body was put through the ringer throughout the season.

Also known for his defensive responsibility, Acciari registered 295 defensive zone starts and 445 defensive zone faceoffs this season, leading the team in those respects, according to Natural Stat Trick.

On the penalty kill, he led all Penguins forwards with an average of 2:24 of short-handed ice time per game.

A hip injury forced Acciari out of the season’s final three games.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. Ranking is out of 17 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.

Corsi For%: 44.36 (17th)
Goals For%: 30.16 (16th)
xGF%: 45.39 (15th)
Scoring Chance%: 46.69 (14th)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 44.44 (15th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 5.97 (16th)
On-ice save%: 89.19 (14th)
Goals/60: 0.27
Assists/60: 0.41
Points/60: 0.68

The offense is nonexistent, and as you’ll see in more visual detail below, so, too, is the ability to drive play. Acciari is primarily dishing out hits and playing defense, not much else in any measurable advanced category.

Charts n’at

Via Advanced Hockey Stats and NHL Edge

Not bad for a fourth liner: play a little defense and try to keep it moving. The lack of finishing in the past two years to align with his time in Pittsburgh is unfortunate.

Acciari’s body is his main asset at this point in his career; he’s either using it to hit other players or getting in shooting lanes and letting the puck hit his body. Other than that, Acciari does very little with his stick and the puck compared to almost every other forward in the NHL.

Limited in almost every way, but Acciari will still try to get around the ice and do what he can as much as he can.

This is a pretty damning chart, Acciari simply doesn’t have the wheels any longer. Playing through pain and dealing with a bum hip for a portion of the season couldn’t have helped, but last year, he was a barely competent skater relative to a league that gets younger and faster every season.

But when you’re not fast and can’t shoot hard, how does one find success? Get to the net. All five of Acciari’s goals this season came from right in front of the net (where he got 26 shots from the tight danger zone, and the four from right in the crease).

Highlights

Giving you 40% of Acciari’s goal total alone right here. Sorry, no Subway Sandwich of the Game. Does Subway even sponsor that part of the broadcast anymore, or is it some lame law firm? Moving on.

Questions to ponder

It remains to be seen what Acciari’s role will be in 2025-26. A new coach is coming on board who can’t possibly like him as much as the outgoing coach, who raved about Acciari at every opportunity. With one year remaining on his contract at a $2 million cap hit, Acciari does not break the bank for the services he provides.

Sure, it’s a bit rich to pay a 33-year-old forward with minimal offense that kind of money, but given where the Penguins have been and are headed, it’s not exactly salary cap malpractice either that will prevent them from making other moves that they might want to do.

Even with some roster upheaval this off-season and a seemingly renewed sense of a youth movement in this veteran-laden Penguins team, Acciari may still find himself as a regular contributor in the bottom-six for one more season.

Ideal 2025-26

Ideally, for Acciari, he gives the Penguins more of the same: more hits, blocked shots, faceoff wins, and penalty kills. In a perfect world, he could serve as Pittsburgh’s 13th forward, but Acciari is likely viewed as a responsible, no-frills veteran by Kyle Dubas and whomever may become the next head coach of the Penguins.

Bottom line