This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Casey Mittelstadt
Boston Bruins Center
40 points, a minus-29, and a 46.1 per cent chance share — the second club in two years to decide he was not the centre they wanted.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | BUF | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | +1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 11.1 | 14:01 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 77 | 12 | 13 | 25 | -19 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 118 | 10.2 | 13:27 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 31 | 4 | 5 | 9 | -5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 34 | 11.8 | 12:46 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 41 | 10 | 12 | 22 | -10 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 61 | 16.4 | 15:53 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 40 | 6 | 13 | 19 | -14 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 7.6 | 16:07 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 82 | 15 | 44 | 59 | -8 | 22 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 135 | 11.1 | 15:44 |
| 2023-24 | BUF/COL | 80 | 18 | 39 | 57 | +10 | 32 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 127 | 14.2 | 17:44 |
| 2024-25 | COL/BOS | 81 | 15 | 25 | 40 | -29 | 24 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 105 | 14.3 | 17:04 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 438 | 81 | 155 | 236 | -74 | 106 | 19 | 2 | 11 | 668 | 12.1 | 15:45 |
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
15 goals and 25 assists in 81 games for 40 points, minus-29, on 17:04 a night between Colorado and Boston.
44.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 13th percentile. His on-ice goals were 44-56 against an expected 37-47, which is the strangest line in this chapter: the chances went badly against him and the goals went well for him, and the plus-minus went badly anyway because most of the damage came shorthanded and on a very poor Boston team.
The Finesse Game
The hands and the vision are real. He plays a slow, possession-based game, holds the puck below the goal line, and 25 assists in this environment is a genuine total. 44 per cent of his shots come from inside 20 feet.
What he has never had is pace of decision at NHL speed. He holds it a beat too long, and against a good forecheck that turns into a turnover in a dangerous place — which is how a skilled centre ends up in the 19th percentile.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 205, and he does not play to the size. He is not a forechecker, he does not win pucks on the wall, and he can be separated from possession by a determined defenceman.
24 penalty minutes over 81 games. Durable, and that is not in question.
The Intangibles
The 8th overall pick, a breakout at 25, and then two clubs inside a year deciding he was not the answer at centre. That is a difficult thing for a player to carry.
He is 26 and there is a genuine second-line centre in the skill set. The evidence of two seasons is that he needs wingers who win pucks and a system that does not ask him to defend the middle of the ice. Boston is the third club that will try.
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
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He plays a slow, possession-based game, holds the puck below the goal line, and 25 assists in this environment is a genuine total.”
“He is not a forechecker”
“he does not win pucks on the wall”
“he can be separated from possession by a determined defenceman”
“a system that does not ask him to defend the middle of the ice”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,108 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.2%
- 13th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.3%
- 36th 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: 44 for, 56 against. Expected: 37.0 and 46.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 29 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 — 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 87th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.14 a game
- Distance
- 2.77 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 77.0 mph
- 13th 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 COL · 903 minutes at five-on-five
- Ross Colton28%
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
- BOS took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.2% — 4.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,108 minutes at five-on-five — 76th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Girard | 47.6% | 42.1% | 55.2% |
| Sam Malinski | 45.2% | 43.8% | 51.6% |
| Devon Toews | 46.0% | 43.6% | 57.5% |
47.6% together, 42.1% for him apart and 55.2% for Girard apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Girard and did not follow 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
145 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.