This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brady Skjei
Nashville Predators Defense
Seven years and $49 million for a defenceman who played 21:53 a night at the 23rd percentile in chance share and took 72 per cent of his shots from beyond 40 feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | NYR | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 17:44 |
| 2016-17 | NYR | 80 | 5 | 34 | 39 | +11 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 127 | 3.9 | 17:28 |
| 2017-18 | NYR | 82 | 4 | 21 | 25 | -27 | 39 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 153 | 2.6 | 21:02 |
| 2018-19 | NYR | 78 | 8 | 17 | 25 | -4 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 126 | 6.3 | 21:14 |
| 2019-20 | NYR/CAR | 67 | 8 | 16 | 24 | -10 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 139 | 5.8 | 20:42 |
| 2020-21 | CAR | 52 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +6 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 104 | 2.9 | 20:44 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 82 | 9 | 30 | 39 | +22 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 184 | 4.9 | 21:09 |
| 2022-23 | CAR | 81 | 18 | 20 | 38 | +7 | 40 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 188 | 9.6 | 21:49 |
| 2023-24 | CAR | 80 | 13 | 34 | 47 | +15 | 40 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 185 | 7.0 | 21:17 |
| 2024-25 | NSH | 82 | 10 | 23 | 33 | -24 | 42 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 156 | 6.4 | 21:53 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 691 | 78 | 202 | 280 | -3 | 374 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 1368 | 5.7 | 20:47 |
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
82 games, 10 goals and 23 assists for 33 points at 21:53 a night — the second-heaviest workload on the club behind Roman Josi, and the heaviest once Josi was shut down in March. 156 shots at 6.4 per cent. Minus-24. This was the first year of the seven-year contract signed in July 2024.
The chance share is where the trouble is. 46.9 per cent across 1,369 five-on-five minutes is the 23rd percentile in the league, and the on-ice goals were 42-61 against an expected 52.65-59.72 — his line was outscored by nineteen while the chances said seven. Ten of that gap is finishing and nine is goaltending, and none of it is flattering to a defenceman paid to be the second-best one on the roster.
The Finesse Game
A good skater for his size, and the least creative part of his game is the part he is paid for.
72 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet at a median of 50. This is a point shot and nothing else, and 6.4 per cent on 156 attempts is what a point shot returns when there is nobody standing in front of it.
The first pass is functional rather than quick. He does not break a forecheck by himself and he does not carry the puck out of trouble under pressure; he moves it to the nearest available option, and on a bad night the nearest available option is the wall.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 210 and willing in front of his own net, and 42 penalty minutes is about the right number for the assignment.
He closes a rush with reach and body position rather than by stepping up, which is the conservative choice and the one that concedes the blue line to a skilled winger. Where it comes apart is the second and third effort — a play that cycles behind him for twenty seconds finds him a step out of position by the end of it.
The Intangibles
82 games, and he has now played at least 76 in eight of the last nine seasons. That durability is real and a large part of what he was bought for.
The contract is what the club has to live with. He is 31, signed through 2031, and the season underneath the money was the worst chance share of his career. On a club that finished 9th in the league in shot-attempt share, he was the regular least responsible for it.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,369 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.9%
- 24th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.4%
- 58th 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: 42 for, 61 against. Expected: 52.6 and 59.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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 · 1369 minutes at five-on-five
- Roman Josi18%
- Luke Schennnow WPG9%
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
- NSH took 49.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.9% — 2.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,369 minutes at five-on-five — 94th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Blankenburg | 46.7% | 47.0% | 58.0% |
| Filip Forsberg | 47.9% | 46.3% | 47.5% |
| Ryan O'Reilly | 48.1% | 46.2% | 49.8% |
46.7% together, 47.0% for him apart and 58.0% for Blankenburg apart. Blankenburg was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
210 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.