Brayden Pachal
Calgary Flames Defense #94
Undrafted, 177 games, and a seventh defenceman who keeps playing.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | VGK | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 9:46 |
| 2022-23 | VGK | 10 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0.0 | 16:37 |
| 2023-24 | VGK/CGY | 50 | 2 | 5 | 7 | -3 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 3.9 | 14:41 |
| 2024-25 | CGY | 76 | 3 | 9 | 12 | +5 | 88 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 4.9 | 14:14 |
| 2025-26 | CGY | 39 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 3.6 | 13:53 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 177 | 6 | 22 | 28 | +1 | 194 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 160 | 3.8 | 14:22 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 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
1 goal and 6 assists in 39 games, minus-1, at 13:53 a night with 47 penalty minutes.
The Finesse Game
None. 45 unblocked attempts from a median of 57 feet, 1 goal, 7 per cent from inside 20. 28 points in 177 career games.
He is not on the ice to touch the puck and he does not.
The Physical Game
6-2, 202, and this is the entire report. 47 penalty minutes in 39 games is a rate near the top of the league among defencemen, and he will fight anybody.
He plays hard, closes gaps, and does the unpleasant work in front of his own net.
The Intangibles
The on-ice results were about average for this roster and therefore below average for the league: 50.3 per cent of the expected goals, 42nd percentile, with the goals 20-21 against in 507 minutes.
He is 27, undrafted, and has built 177 NHL games out of being willing. On a club whose blue line is 2 teenagers, a 35-year-old and a set of imports, he is the one nobody wants to play against.
That is a job, and it is a job that pays less than it did 30 years ago and requires more.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 507 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.3%
- 57th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.9%
- 45th 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: 20 for, 21 against. Expected: 20.8 and 20.5.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 51 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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, 2025-26 · 39 games
- Top speed
- 21.1 mph
- 30th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.36 a game
- Distance
- 1.92 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.6 mph
- 30th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 88.9
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.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
4
points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 3 assists, 12 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 507 minutes at five-on-five
- Joel Hanley40%
- Jake Beanoff the roster15%
- Zayne Parekh12%
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, 2025-26
- The club
- CGY took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.3% — 3.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 507 minutes at five-on-five — 17th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joel Hanley | 53.6% | 48.4% | 50.1% |
| Matt Coronato | 47.6% | 51.5% | 45.4% |
| Morgan Frost | 51.7% | 49.7% | 47.3% |
53.6% together, 48.4% for him apart and 50.1% for Hanley apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
45 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 60 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.