Dennis Gilbert
Ottawa Senators Defense
Fifty penalty minutes in 29 games, no shot attempts at all from inside 20 feet, and 138 penalty minutes in 111 career games.
| 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 | BUF/OTT | 29 | 0 | 6 | 6 | -3 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 10:29 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 111 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -18 | 138 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 57 | 5.3 | 12:12 |
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
No goals and 6 assists in 29 games across Buffalo and Ottawa — 50 penalty minutes at 10:29 a night.
44.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 12th percentile, across 277 minutes. His ice went 18-17 against an expectation of 10.18-12.74, which on that sample is noise rather than evidence.
The Finesse Game
9 shot attempts in 29 games and no goals, at a median of 56 feet with none at all from inside 20 feet. There is no offence here and the club is not looking for any.
The puck game is limited to the simplest available option and he is uncomfortable when the first one is taken away.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 216 and this is the whole player. He hits hard, he fights, and he clears his own crease by moving people out of it.
50 penalty minutes in 29 games is among the highest rates in the league and 138 in 111 career games is the shape of a career. He crosses the line on purpose.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick of Chicago in 2015 who has played for five organisations and never held a regular job in any of them — 111 NHL games in six seasons.
He came to Ottawa with Dylan Cozens in the March trade. He is 28 and the role is the seventh defenceman a club dresses when it expects a hard night.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 277 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.4%
- 12th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.1%
- 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: 18 for, 17 against. Expected: 10.2 and 12.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 5 points of one another. 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.
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 — 62 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
2024-25 with BUF · 243 minutes at five-on-five
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
- OTT took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.4% — 5.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 277 minutes at five-on-five — 5th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Clifton | 40.0% | 48.8% | 45.8% |
| Peyton Krebs | 41.1% | 45.8% | 47.2% |
| Dylan Cozens | 43.7% | 44.7% | 47.9% |
40.0% together, 48.8% for him apart and 45.8% for Clifton 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
17 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 0 of them goals. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.