This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Dmitry Orlov
Carolina Hurricanes Defense
Fifty-seven point six per cent of the expected goals — the ninety-fifth percentile — and the only defenceman here who clears a crease by force.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | WSH | 60 | 3 | 16 | 19 | +1 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 51 | 5.9 | 16:52 |
| 2012-13 | WSH | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 14:57 |
| 2013-14 | WSH | 54 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -1 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 59 | 5.1 | 19:36 |
| 2015-16 | WSH | 82 | 8 | 21 | 29 | +8 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 90 | 8.9 | 16:02 |
| 2016-17 | WSH | 82 | 6 | 27 | 33 | +30 | 51 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 125 | 4.8 | 19:32 |
| 2017-18 | WSH | 82 | 10 | 21 | 31 | +10 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 125 | 8.0 | 23:08 |
| 2018-19 | WSH | 82 | 3 | 26 | 29 | +3 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 101 | 3.0 | 21:38 |
| 2019-20 | WSH | 69 | 4 | 23 | 27 | +5 | 36 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 105 | 3.8 | 22:10 |
| 2020-21 | WSH | 51 | 8 | 14 | 22 | +16 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 83 | 9.6 | 19:49 |
| 2021-22 | WSH | 76 | 12 | 23 | 35 | +25 | 44 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 127 | 9.4 | 20:58 |
| 2022-23 | WSH/BOS | 66 | 7 | 29 | 36 | +12 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 124 | 5.7 | 22:33 |
| 2023-24 | CAR | 82 | 6 | 20 | 26 | +4 | 36 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 129 | 4.7 | 17:19 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 791 | 70 | 229 | 299 | +118 | 327 | 5 | 1 | 17 | 1120 | 6.3 | 19:57 |
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
6 goals and 20 assists in all 82 games — 26 points at 17:19 a night, plus-4, with 1 shorthanded goal on 129 shots, and 36 penalty minutes.
57.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,310 minutes, the 95th percentile. His ice went 53-44 against an expectation of 59.67-43.97 — six goals of scoring missing and two fewer conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
129 attempts at a median of 45 feet, with 63 per cent from beyond 40 and 10 per cent from inside 20, converting at 4.65 per cent. Seventy goals in 791 career games.
20 assists and 229 for his career. The first pass is early and he will carry the puck out when it is not there, and the skating is better than a 5-11 and 215-pound defenceman in his twelfth season has any right to.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 215, and he clears the front of his own net by force — which on this blue line is scarce, and on a club whose top pair defends entirely with position it is the reason he is here.
He finishes checks and he wins battles below the goal line against men taller than he is. 36 penalty minutes in 82 games and 327 in 791 for his career is a moderate rate for a defenceman who plays this way.
The Intangibles
Fifty-fifth overall in 2009 by Washington, a Stanley Cup in 2018, and 791 games and 299 points at 33 with a career plus-118.
He is the second-oldest defenceman on the roster and the only one who plays a heavy game. On a blue line that has just lost Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei, the man who clears the crease matters more this year than he did last.
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.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
60% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“**5-11 and 215, and he clears the front of his own net by force** — which on this blue line is scarce, and on a club whose top pair defends entirely with position it is the reason he is here.”
“**He finishes checks and he wins battles below the goal line** against men taller than he is.”
“**He finishes checks and he wins battles below the goal line** against men taller than he is.”
“**The first pass is early and he will carry the puck out when it is not there**, and the skating is better than a 5-11 and 215-pound defenceman in his twelfth season has any right to.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,310 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57.6%
- 95th pct
- Shot attempts
- 59.9%
- 99th 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: 53 for, 44 against. Expected: 59.7 and 44.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 28 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 73rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.32 a game
- Distance
- 2.44 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.8 mph
- 96th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1310 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, 2023-24
- The club
- CAR took 56.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.6% — 1.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,310 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jalen Chatfield | 61.3% | 51.2% | 55.6% |
| Martin Necas | 52.5% | 60.6% | 54.0% |
| Jesperi Kotkaniemi | 57.4% | 57.7% | 56.6% |
61.3% together, 51.2% for him apart and 55.6% for Chatfield apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
192 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 46 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 63% from beyond forty.