This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Brock Nelson

26 goals at 33, acquired for the second line the club has not had since Nazem Kadri left, and a 49.5 per cent chance share that says the job was harder than the total.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2013-14	NYI	72	14	12	26	-10	12	3	0	1	132	10.6	14:16
2014-15	NYI	82	20	22	42	+6	24	10	0	3	190	10.5	15:53
2015-16	NYI	81	26	14	40	-3	30	3	0	3	165	15.8	15:48
2016-17	NYI	81	20	25	45	-6	36	1	0	4	173	11.6	15:39
2017-18	NYI	82	19	16	35	-4	43	4	0	3	138	13.8	14:44
2018-19	NYI	82	25	28	53	+20	28	2	1	3	181	13.8	17:58
2019-20	NYI	68	26	28	54	+6	32	4	0	5	175	14.9	18:52
2020-21	NYI	56	18	15	33	-5	14	7	0	4	121	14.9	17:50
2021-22	NYI	72	37	22	59	-5	33	11	0	5	171	21.6	17:41
2022-23	NYI	82	36	39	75	+13	24	6	0	8	222	16.2	18:26
2023-24	NYI	82	34	35	69	-5	28	9	1	2	250	13.6	18:05
2024-25	NYI/COL	80	26	30	56	+8	18	3	3	7	193	13.5	18:55
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	920	301	286	587	+15	322	63	5	48	2111	14.3	16:59

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

26 goals and 30 assists in 80 games for 56 points between the Islanders and Colorado, plus-8, on 18:55 a night. 7 game-winners and 3 shorthanded goals.

49.5 per cent at five-on-five, the 46th percentile, which is the honest half of it: he spent most of the season on a club that was drowning, and his on-ice expected goals came in at 44-45. Whatever he is, he is not a man who tilts a rink by himself.

The Finesse Game

A heavy, quick release from the slot, and a decade of getting to the slot to use it. 39 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet — he is a net-front and inside-lane scorer rather than a shooter from distance, and at 6-4 he is very hard to move once he is there.

The hands are better than a man this size is usually credited with, particularly in tight, and the faceoff work is real. What he does not do is drive a line: he finishes what a winger creates and he needs somebody who can carry the puck into the zone.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 205, and he uses it in the right places — the net front, the wall, the defensive-zone box. He is not a hitter and never has been; 18 penalty minutes across a full season is a player who is exactly where he should be and never a foot further.

The durability is the quiet virtue. 80 games at 33, and he has been a 70-plus man every season of his career.

The Intangibles

Fourteen seasons on Long Island and no reputation for anything but showing up, which is the specific thing Colorado was buying at the deadline. He arrived, took the second-line centre job, and did not need it explained to him.

The risk is age and the price of it. He turns 34 in October, the skating was never the strength, and 26 goals is a number that ends abruptly for players built this way. The club is paying for three or four more years of a man whose game is already about position rather than speed.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,120 minutes

Expected goals: 49.5%; 46th pct
Shot attempts: 49.4%; 45th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 39 for, 35 against. Expected: 44.2 and 45.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

78th

Numbers

46th

The report ranks him 32 points above where the numbers do. 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 156 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 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 with NYI · 909 minutes at five-on-five

Kyle Palmieri79%
Maksim Tsyplakov52%
Anthony Duclair14%

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: COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 3.7 below the club he did it on.
The role: 1,120 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Kyle Palmieri	49.1%	50.5%	48.3%
Maxim Tsyplakov	54.6%	45.3%	52.7%
Noah Dobson	56.1%	47.0%	53.6%

49.1% together, 50.5% for him apart and 48.3% for Palmieri 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

281 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.