This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Aaron Ekblad
Florida Panthers Defense
First overall in 2014, 676 games by 28, and half a season that conceded fifteen fewer than it should have.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | FLA | 81 | 12 | 27 | 39 | +12 | 32 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 170 | 7.1 | 21:49 |
| 2015-16 | FLA | 78 | 15 | 21 | 36 | +18 | 41 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 182 | 8.2 | 21:41 |
| 2016-17 | FLA | 68 | 10 | 11 | 21 | -23 | 58 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 225 | 4.4 | 21:28 |
| 2017-18 | FLA | 82 | 16 | 22 | 38 | +9 | 71 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 189 | 8.5 | 23:23 |
| 2018-19 | FLA | 82 | 13 | 24 | 37 | +1 | 47 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 180 | 7.2 | 23:39 |
| 2019-20 | FLA | 67 | 5 | 36 | 41 | +12 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 147 | 3.4 | 22:59 |
| 2020-21 | FLA | 35 | 11 | 11 | 22 | +5 | 33 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 101 | 10.9 | 25:05 |
| 2021-22 | FLA | 61 | 15 | 42 | 57 | +38 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 180 | 8.3 | 24:55 |
| 2022-23 | FLA | 71 | 14 | 24 | 38 | -14 | 68 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 216 | 6.5 | 23:24 |
| 2023-24 | FLA | 51 | 4 | 14 | 18 | +27 | 50 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 98 | 4.1 | 20:52 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 676 | 115 | 232 | 347 | +85 | 452 | 41 | 2 | 24 | 1688 | 6.8 | 22:50 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
51 games, 4 goals and 14 assists for 18 points, 1 on the power play, 50 penalty minutes, 20:52 a night and plus-27. He took 55.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 830 minutes, the 87th percentile, and his ice went 35-16 against an expectation of 37.46-30.69.
Fifteen goals fewer conceded than the chances called for, in half a season. A plus-27 in 51 games is a spectacular-looking number and most of it was made in the crease behind him.
The Finesse Game
98 shots at a median of 49 feet with 66 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 4.1 per cent. The shot is heavy and it is a delivery rather than a threat.
232 career assists in 676 games and 41 career power-play goals. He was a genuine offensive defenceman for the first six years of his career and the club has not needed him to be one for the last four.
The Physical Game
He is 6-4 and 220 and clears the front of his own net by force.
452 career penalty minutes in 676 games. He finishes checks, is hard to move in the slot, and retaliates when somebody goes after a team-mate. 50 penalty minutes in 51 games is the highest rate of his career.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2014 out of Windsor, ten seasons, 676 games and 347 points, all of it for one organisation. He has been injured in most seasons of his career and has still played 676 games by 28.
He is 28 and has been in the league for a decade. The availability is the whole question and it has been the whole question since he was 20.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“He is 6-4 and 220 and clears the front of his own net by force.”
“He finishes checks, is hard to move in the slot, and retaliates when somebody goes after a team-mate.”
“He finishes checks, is hard to move in the slot, and retaliates when somebody goes after a team-mate.”
“He finishes checks, is hard to move in the slot, and retaliates when somebody goes after a team-mate.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 830 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55%
- 87th pct
- Shot attempts
- 58.5%
- 97th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 35 for, 16 against. Expected: 37.5 and 30.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 30 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 51 games
- Top speed
- 21.0 mph
- 22nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.24 a game
- Distance
- 2.95 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.8 mph
- 65th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 830 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- FLA took 53.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.0% — 1.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 830 minutes at five-on-five — 42nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gustav Forsling | 55.2% | 53.4% | 57.0% |
| Sam Reinhart | 56.6% | 53.8% | 59.8% |
| Aleksander Barkov | 62.6% | 51.1% | 60.0% |
55.2% together, 53.4% for him apart and 57.0% for Forsling apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
149 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 42 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 66% from beyond forty.