Dmitry Kulikov
Florida Panthers Defense
34 years old, a plus-12, and 51.7 per cent in the club's third-pair minutes.
| 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 | FLA | 76 | 1 | 19 | 20 | +15 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 74 | 1.4 | 16:31 |
| 2024-25 | FLA | 70 | 4 | 9 | 13 | +12 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 64 | 6.3 | 19:16 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 1018 | 50 | 197 | 247 | -24 | 629 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 1166 | 4.3 | 19:27 |
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
4 goals and 9 assists in 70 games for 13 points, plus-12, on 19:16 a night.
51.6 per cent at five-on-five, the 68th percentile, over 1,160 minutes. His on-ice goals were 45-38 against an expected 46-43.
The Finesse Game
Almost none. 64 shots in 70 games and 4 goals, and 9 assists — the offensive return is among the lowest in this edition for a defenceman playing 19 minutes.
The first pass is short and safe. Nothing is attempted and nothing goes wrong.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 212, and he plays a hard, direct game. He clears his crease, hits, and blocks shots without theatre.
38 penalty minutes over 70 games is a moderate rate. The durability at 34 is good and the game does not depend on pace.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick, seven organisations, sixteen seasons, and a second stint with the club that drafted him that has produced two Cups.
At 34 the projection is 65 games of competent defensive hockey. The reason this club keeps re-signing him is that he does exactly one thing and never attempts a second.
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.
“He clears his crease”
“blocks shots without theatre”
“6-1 and 212, and he plays a hard, direct game.”
“At 34 the projection is 65 games of competent defensive hockey.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,160 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.6%
- 68th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.2%
- 84th 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: 45 for, 38 against. Expected: 45.7 and 43.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 32 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 70 games
- Top speed
- 21.2 mph
- 28th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.34 a game
- Distance
- 2.82 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.0 mph
- 53rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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 · 1160 minutes at five-on-five
- Niko Mikkola59%
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
- FLA took 54.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.6% — 2.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,160 minutes at five-on-five — 81st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niko Mikkola | 51.5% | 51.6% | 55.3% |
| Sam Bennett | 50.1% | 52.4% | 53.4% |
| Carter Verhaeghe | 50.7% | 51.9% | 55.6% |
51.5% together, 51.6% for him apart and 55.3% for Mikkola apart. Mikkola 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
100 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 56 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.