This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Colton Parayko
St. Louis Blues Defense
Six-foot-six, 16 goals from the blue line, and 8 penalty minutes in 64 games at 23:45 a night.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | STL | 79 | 9 | 24 | 33 | +28 | 29 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 165 | 5.5 | 19:23 |
| 2016-17 | STL | 81 | 4 | 31 | 35 | +7 | 32 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 188 | 2.1 | 21:12 |
| 2017-18 | STL | 82 | 6 | 29 | 35 | -7 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 212 | 2.8 | 22:37 |
| 2018-19 | STL | 80 | 10 | 18 | 28 | +20 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 176 | 5.7 | 22:47 |
| 2019-20 | STL | 64 | 10 | 18 | 28 | +8 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 162 | 6.2 | 23:00 |
| 2020-21 | STL | 32 | 2 | 10 | 12 | -2 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 3.3 | 21:20 |
| 2021-22 | STL | 80 | 6 | 29 | 35 | +16 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 135 | 4.4 | 23:34 |
| 2022-23 | STL | 79 | 4 | 23 | 27 | -19 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 133 | 3.0 | 23:00 |
| 2023-24 | STL | 82 | 10 | 16 | 26 | +4 | 23 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 154 | 6.5 | 23:52 |
| 2024-25 | STL | 64 | 16 | 20 | 36 | +12 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 125 | 12.8 | 23:45 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 723 | 77 | 218 | 295 | +67 | 198 | 17 | 2 | 20 | 1510 | 5.1 | 22:29 |
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
16 goals and 20 assists in 64 games — 36 points at 23:45 a night, the largest assignment on the club, plus-12, with 4 game-winners, a shorthanded goal and 8 penalty minutes.
51.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 54th percentile. His ice went 61-52 against an expectation of 46.90-45.12 — two goals better than expected for and five fewer against, which is a top-pair defenceman doing his job.
The Finesse Game
125 attempts at a median of 48 feet with 62 per cent from beyond 40 — and 19 per cent from inside 20, which is a very high share for a defenceman. He converted at 12.8 per cent for 16 goals, which is more than any defenceman in this chapter.
The shot is genuinely among the heaviest in the league and it is a real weapon rather than a puck thrown at the net. 20 assists is modest and the first pass is simple and quick.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 228 and he defends the rush with reach that almost nobody in the league can match. He closes at the blue line without contact, he clears his own crease, and he blocks shots.
8 penalty minutes in 64 games at nearly twenty-four minutes a night is close to unheard of. He is essentially never beaten badly enough to reach, and it is the single clearest number on his file.
The Intangibles
An 86th-overall pick in 2012 out of Alaska-Fairbanks, and 723 games and 295 points, all of it here, with a Stanley Cup in 2019.
He is 32, signed through 2030, and has played twenty-two minutes or more in every season of his career.
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
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
23.2% of his attempts in the slot, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.13 penalty minutes a game over 64, 3rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:47 a game at five-on-five, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“**6-6 and 228 and he defends the rush with reach that almost nobody in the league can match.** He closes at the blue line without contact, he clears his own crease, and he blocks shots.”
“He closes at the blue line without contact, he clears his own crease, and he blocks shots.”
“He closes at the blue line without contact, he clears his own crease, and he blocks shots.”
“**8 penalty minutes in 64 games at nearly twenty-four minutes a night is close to unheard of.** He is essentially never beaten badly enough to reach, and it is the single clearest number on his file.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,266 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51%
- 63rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.9%
- 33rd 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: 61 for, 52 against. Expected: 46.9 and 45.1.
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 — 79 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 · 64 games
- Top speed
- 22.4 mph
- 79th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.03 a game
- Distance
- 3.31 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 102.3 mph
- 99th 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 89.7
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 · 1266 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Suteroff the roster38%
- Cam Fowler37%
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
- STL took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.0% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,266 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Suter | 43.7% | 55.4% | 50.5% |
| Cam Fowler | 58.9% | 46.1% | 47.6% |
| Pavel Buchnevich | 51.3% | 50.7% | 54.1% |
43.7% together, 55.4% for him apart and 50.5% for Suter apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
177 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 19% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.