Denis Gurianov
Nashville Predators Right Wing
The fifth-most bursts of speed in the league, a hundred-mile-an-hour shot, and seven goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | DAL | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 13:06 |
| 2018-19 | DAL | 21 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 4.3 | 10:52 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 64 | 20 | 9 | 29 | +5 | 13 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 132 | 15.2 | 12:59 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 55 | 12 | 18 | 30 | 0 | 21 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 130 | 9.2 | 15:51 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 73 | 11 | 20 | 31 | +2 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 144 | 7.6 | 14:11 |
| 2022-23 | DAL/MTL | 66 | 7 | 10 | 17 | -9 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 6.0 | 13:12 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 280 | 51 | 60 | 111 | -6 | 60 | 16 | 0 | 8 | 545 | 9.4 | 13:45 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
7 goals and 10 assists in 66 games — 17 points — split between Dallas and Montreal. Minus-9, 13:12 a night, 116 shots at 6.0 per cent, 10 penalty minutes.
Seven goals on a hundred and sixteen shots, from a twelfth-overall pick who scored twenty as a rookie.
42.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 10th percentile, with his ice at 23-31 against an expectation of 26.33-35.51 — three short at one end and four better at the other.
He started 47.6 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 35th percentile, which is a mildly hard share and nothing like enough to explain a 10th percentile.
Six seasons, 280 games, 111 points.
The Finesse Game
116 shots at a median of 29 feet, 34 per cent from inside twenty and 30 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 26 shots on goal, 1 goal. Inside forty: 82 shots, 6 goals, 7.32 per cent.
7.32 per cent from inside forty feet is roughly half what a top-nine forward returns, and his overall shooting rate has now been under eight for two straight seasons.
100.0 mph at the 97th percentile — the hardest registered shot of any forward in these five chapters. He took nine slap shots, which is thin volume for that measurement, but the reading is high enough that it is difficult to dismiss.
That is the file in one line: he shoots harder than anyone in the chapter and scores less than almost anyone in it.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 205, and ten penalty minutes in sixty-six games.
Bursts 4.56 a game — fifth in the entire league, behind MacKinnon, McDavid, Point and Eichel. Top speed 23.1 mph, the 87th percentile. 2.25 miles a game, the 27th.
That list is the four best skaters in hockey and then a thirteen-minute winger with seventeen points. This book has no explanation for it and records it plainly: the acceleration is genuinely elite and none of it reaches the scoresheet.
Ten penalty minutes says he does not finish checks, does not forecheck the first man and does not go anywhere he might be hit.
The Intangibles
Twelfth overall in 2015 to Dallas, twenty goals in his first full season at twenty-two, and 51 in 280 games across six.
He is twenty-six, on his third organisation in a year, and everything measurable about the physical tools is in the top decile of the league.
This is the most frustrating file in the chapter. A club signing him is buying the 4.56 and the 100.0 and betting that somebody can attach them to a hockey player. Two organisations have failed and Nashville is the third to 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
- 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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
29.8% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“Ten penalty minutes says he does not finish checks, does not forecheck the first man and does not go anywhere he might be hit.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 790 minutes
- Expected goals
- 42.6%
- 10th pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.4%
- 25th 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: 23 for, 31 against. Expected: 26.3 and 35.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 28 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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, 2022-23 · 66 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 90th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 4.56 a game
- Distance
- 2.25 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.0 mph
- 99th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.9
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
2022-23 with DAL · 479 minutes at five-on-five
- Tyler Seguin29%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- MTL took 44.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.6% — 1.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 790 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Suter | 40.8% | 43.1% | 54.4% |
| Mason Marchment | 45.7% | 41.7% | 50.4% |
| Colin Miller | 48.6% | 41.2% | 52.2% |
40.8% together, 43.1% for him apart and 54.4% for Suter apart. Suter was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for 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
161 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 34% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 30% from beyond forty.