This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Dennis Gilbert
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Eighty-eight penalty minutes in eighty-two career games, and nine goals for on his ice against twenty-one.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | CHI | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 12:46 |
| 2019-20 | CHI | 21 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -8 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 8.3 | 15:42 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:43 |
| 2022-23 | CGY | 23 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 7.7 | 11:44 |
| 2023-24 | CGY | 34 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -7 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 4.3 | 12:17 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 82 | 3 | 11 | 14 | -15 | 88 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 48 | 6.3 | 12:48 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
1 goal and 6 assists in 34 games for Calgary — 7 points at 12:17 a night, minus-7, on 23 shots with 16 penalty minutes.
47.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 402 minutes, the 34th percentile. His ice went 9-21 against an expectation of 14.29-15.79 — five goals of scoring missing and five conceded above expectation, in a third-pairing role.
The Finesse Game
23 attempts at a median of 48 feet, with 73 per cent from beyond 40 and 3 per cent from inside 20. Three goals in 82 NHL games.
Six assists. He does not carry the puck out, he does not create, and the first pass is off the glass more often than to a man, and none of it is why he is on a roster.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 216, and this is the report. He finishes every check and he clears the front of his own net by force, and he will fight.
88 penalty minutes in 82 career games — better than one a game across five seasons of part-time work. He takes liberties and he answers for them.
The Intangibles
Ninety-first overall in 2015 by Chicago, four organisations, and 82 NHL games spread across five seasons at 27, most of his career in the American league.
He was signed here in the summer. A blue line whose top four does not punish anybody has added a seventh defenceman who does nothing else, which is a coherent thought and is also 88 penalty minutes in 82 games.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 402 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.5%
- 34th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 48th 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: 9 for, 21 against. Expected: 14.3 and 15.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 20 points above where the report does. 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 with CGY · 402 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick DeSimonenow UTA21%
- Chris Tanevnow TOR16%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- CGY took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.5% — 2.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 402 minutes at five-on-five — 12th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nazem Kadri | 49.8% | 45.9% | 49.1% |
| Jonathan Huberdeau | 45.7% | 48.2% | 51.6% |
| Connor Zary | 43.8% | 48.6% | 50.3% |
49.8% together, 45.9% for him apart and 49.1% for Kadri apart. He was worse away from Kadri, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Kadri did.
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
37 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.