This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Artem Zub
Ottawa Senators Defense
Eighty-four per cent of his shot attempts came from beyond 40 feet, and the 86th percentile of chances came with them.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | OTT | 47 | 3 | 11 | 14 | +4 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 39 | 7.7 | 18:23 |
| 2021-22 | OTT | 81 | 6 | 16 | 22 | +1 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 92 | 6.5 | 21:02 |
| 2022-23 | OTT | 53 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +2 | 39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 7.3 | 20:15 |
| 2023-24 | OTT | 69 | 5 | 20 | 25 | +5 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 85 | 5.9 | 21:01 |
| 2024-25 | OTT | 56 | 2 | 11 | 13 | +3 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 57 | 3.5 | 20:38 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 306 | 19 | 65 | 84 | +15 | 191 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 314 | 6.0 | 20:25 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
2 goals and 11 assists in 56 games — 13 points at 20:38 a night, plus-3, with 34 penalty minutes. He missed a quarter of the season.
54.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 86th percentile — the best mark of any defenceman on the club. His ice went 24-35 against an expectation of 33.98-28.93, which is ten goals of scoring missing and six extra conceded on a pairing that was winning the chances comfortably.
The Finesse Game
57 attempts in 56 games at a median of 57 feet with 84 per cent of them from beyond 40 and 4 per cent from inside 20 — the most perimeter shot profile on the roster. He is not a shooter and the club does not use him as one.
The puck movement is deliberately small: the short pass to the correct man, off the stick early, and out. 11 assists is the whole offensive contribution and it is not the point.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 201 and this is where he earns it. He finishes checks hard, he blocks shots, and he plays with a physical edge that is genuinely uncomfortable to face.
34 penalty minutes in 56 games is a slightly high rate and most of it is contact rather than stick work. He clears the front of his own net and he is on the first penalty-killing pair.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, and he did not play an NHL game until he was 25, arriving from the KHL in 2020 after six seasons of Russian professional hockey.
306 games since, all in Ottawa, and he has been in the top four for every one of them. He is 30 and the injuries are becoming a pattern: 53, 69 and 56 games in three of the last four seasons.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 913 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54%
- 87th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.9%
- 51st 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: 24 for, 35 against. Expected: 34.0 and 28.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 45 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 637 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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 913 minutes at five-on-five
- Tyler Kleven11%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- OTT took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.0% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 913 minutes at five-on-five — 48th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Sanderson | 54.3% | 53.1% | 48.5% |
| Ridly Greig | 56.9% | 52.4% | 46.1% |
| Shane Pinto | 59.2% | 51.3% | 48.6% |
54.3% together, 53.1% for him apart and 48.5% for Sanderson apart. Sanderson was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Sanderson than for him.
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
82 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 64 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.