Curtis Lazar

5 points in 48 games, and a fourth-line centre signed for the room and the kill.

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

2014-15	OTT	67	6	9	15	+1	14	0	0	0	92	6.5	12:54
2015-16	OTT	76	6	14	20	-1	18	1	1	0	78	7.7	13:52
2016-17	OTT/CGY	37	1	3	4	-8	4	0	0	0	26	3.9	9:08
2017-18	CGY	65	2	10	12	-8	23	0	0	1	65	3.1	9:51
2018-19	CGY	1	0	0	0	-1	0	0	0	0	0	—	4:48
2019-20	BUF	38	5	5	10	-3	9	0	0	0	33	15.2	11:50
2020-21	BUF/BOS	50	7	6	13	-6	6	0	0	1	55	12.7	13:20
2021-22	BOS	70	8	8	16	-2	16	0	0	0	95	8.4	12:00
2022-23	VAN/NJD	49	3	2	5	-6	21	0	0	0	55	5.5	11:56
2023-24	NJD	71	7	18	25	+10	44	0	1	2	74	9.5	12:23
2024-25	NJD	48	2	3	5	-6	14	0	0	0	27	7.4	10:34
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	572	47	78	125	-30	169	1	2	4	600	7.8	11:56

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

2 goals and 3 assists in 48 games for 5 points, minus-6, on 10:34 a night with New Jersey.

27 shots in 48 games. The smallest role available on an NHL roster and the numbers say so.

The Finesse Game

None. 5 points in 48 games is his rate over the last four seasons and there has never been a season above 20 points in eleven of them.

He wins a draw and gets the puck deep. That is the whole offensive contribution.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 203, and he plays a hard, willing forechecking game. He blocks shots, finishes checks, and is trusted shorthanded.

14 penalty minutes over 48 games is disciplined for the style.

The Intangibles

A first-round pick who became a fourth-line centre, six organisations, and a reputation as one of the better teammates in the league.

At 30 the projection is a thirteenth forward who kills penalties. Edmonton had the best kill in the league and has bought another man who can do it, which is cheap and sensible.

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.

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.

faceoffsa strength· takes the draw that starts it
“He wins a draw and gets the puck deep.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“he plays a hard, willing forechecking game”
shot-blockera strength· gets in front of it
“He blocks shots, finishes checks, and is trusted shorthanded.”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“finishes checks”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“At 30 the projection is a thirteenth forward who kills penalties.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“a reputation as one of the better teammates in the league”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 449 minutes

Expected goals: 38.8%; 1st pct
Shot attempts: 42.1%; 4th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 8 for, 15 against. Expected: 10.6 and 16.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

25th

Numbers

1st

The report ranks him 24 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 — 68 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 · 48 games

Top speed: 23.1 mph; 90th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.27 a game
Distance: 1.76 miles a game
Hardest shot: 82.7 mph; 31st pct

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 NJD · 449 minutes at five-on-five

Nathan Bastiannow DAL78%
Tomas Tataroff the roster43%
Paul Cotter26%

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: NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 38.8% — 11.9 below the club he did it on.
The role: Fourth line, 449 minutes at five-on-five — 13th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Nathan Bastian	40.8%	32.9%	49.8%
Tomas Tatar	42.3%	36.7%	50.7%
Brenden Dillon	36.2%	40.1%	51.1%

40.8% together, 32.9% for him apart and 49.8% for Bastian apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Bastian 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

38 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 29 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.