This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brock Nelson
Colorado Avalanche Center
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.
50.6 per cent at five-on-five, the 58th 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 46-45. 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.
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.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“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.”
“at 6-4 he is very hard to move once he is there”
“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.”
“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 numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,120 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.6%
- 59th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.7%
- 49th 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: 54 for, 39 against. Expected: 46.0 and 45.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 21 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 637 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 22.6 mph
- 67th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.14 a game
- Distance
- 3.25 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 85.2 mph
- 46th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 with NYI · 909 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, 2024-25
- The club
- COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.6% — 2.6 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 | 48.9% | 53.9% | 47.9% |
| Maxim Tsyplakov | 54.5% | 47.5% | 51.1% |
| Noah Dobson | 55.4% | 48.7% | 53.7% |
48.9% together, 53.9% for him apart and 47.9% for Palmieri apart. He was better away from Palmieri, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Palmieri.
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.