This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Dmitry Kulikov
Florida Panthers Defense
Florida's first-round pick in 2009, back after seven other organisations and the sixth-worst chance share in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-10 | FLA | 68 | 3 | 13 | 16 | -5 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 87 | 3.5 | 17:56 |
| 2010-11 | FLA | 72 | 6 | 20 | 26 | -5 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 83 | 7.2 | 19:57 |
| 2011-12 | FLA | 58 | 4 | 24 | 28 | -5 | 36 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 104 | 3.9 | 21:51 |
| 2012-13 | FLA | 34 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -5 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 52 | 5.8 | 20:59 |
| 2013-14 | FLA | 81 | 8 | 11 | 19 | -26 | 66 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 127 | 6.3 | 21:42 |
| 2014-15 | FLA | 73 | 3 | 19 | 22 | 0 | 48 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 83 | 3.6 | 21:19 |
| 2015-16 | FLA | 74 | 1 | 16 | 17 | +8 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 99 | 1.0 | 21:02 |
| 2016-17 | BUF | 47 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -26 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 4.8 | 21:54 |
| 2017-18 | WPG | 62 | 3 | 8 | 11 | +6 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 48 | 6.3 | 17:04 |
| 2018-19 | WPG | 57 | 0 | 6 | 6 | +4 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 0.0 | 15:40 |
| 2019-20 | WPG | 51 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -4 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 54 | 3.7 | 20:01 |
| 2020-21 | NJD/EDM | 48 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -3 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 51 | 0.0 | 19:10 |
| 2021-22 | MIN | 80 | 7 | 17 | 24 | +23 | 39 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 74 | 9.5 | 18:12 |
| 2022-23 | ANA/PIT | 67 | 3 | 13 | 16 | -13 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 3.6 | 19:29 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 872 | 45 | 169 | 214 | -51 | 528 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 1028 | 4.4 | 19:43 |
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
3 goals and 13 assists in 67 games — 16 points — split between Anaheim and Pittsburgh. Minus-13, 19:29 a night, 84 shots, 34 penalty minutes.
38.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five is the sixth-worst figure in the league among skaters with 600 or more minutes, and his ice finished 40-60 against an expectation of 37.80-59.40 — process and result agreed almost exactly. He was not unlucky. He was on the ice for the chances that number describes.
Fourteen seasons, 872 games, 214 points.
The Finesse Game
84 shots at a median of 45 feet, 14 per cent from inside twenty and 60 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 46 shots on goal, 1 goal. Inside forty: 35 shots, 2 goals.
Three goals in sixty-seven games, and his career figure is 45 in 872. There has never been an offensive case here, and the last time he reached twenty-five points was 2011-12.
90.4 mph at the 46th percentile.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 212, and 34 penalty minutes.
Top speed 21.8 mph, the 26th percentile; bursts 0.5 a game, the 23rd; 2.68 miles a game, the 60th.
He defends by taking the body and by blocking shots, and at thirty-two he is doing both a half-step later than he used to. His 42.9 per cent offensive-zone start share is the 20th percentile, the second-hardest deployment of any defenceman in this chapter behind Mikkola, and that matters a great deal when reading the 38.9.
The Intangibles
Fourteenth overall in 2009 to Florida, six full seasons there, and now back after Buffalo, Winnipeg, New Jersey, Edmonton, Minnesota, Anaheim and Pittsburgh.
Seven organisations in seven years is a market verdict, and the number this book keeps returning to is 38.9. The mitigation — that he took the hardest starts on two bad clubs — is genuine and it does not get him all the way back to average.
Florida is asking for a third pair and a penalty kill. That is a fair ask of him and it is at the top of what is left.
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
19.6% of his attempts in the slot, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“He defends by taking the body and by blocking shots, and at thirty-two he is doing both a half-step later than he used to.”
“Florida is asking for a third pair and a penalty kill.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,083 minutes
- Expected goals
- 38.9%
- 3rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 43%
- 9th 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: 40 for, 60 against. Expected: 37.8 and 59.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 9 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 56 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 · 67 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 58th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.46 a game
- Distance
- 2.68 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.4 mph
- 42nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
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 ANA · 1018 minutes at five-on-five
- Cam Fowler55%
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
- PIT took 53.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 38.9% — 14.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,083 minutes at five-on-five — 67th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cam Fowler | 40.3% | 37.2% | 43.1% |
| Frank Vatrano | 38.2% | 39.1% | 35.8% |
| Ryan Strome | 34.5% | 40.6% | 39.1% |
40.3% together, 37.2% for him apart and 43.1% for Fowler apart. He was worse away from Fowler, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Fowler 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
102 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 14% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 60% from beyond forty.