This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Drew Helleson
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Defense
A 40.4 per cent chance share — the 2nd percentile in the league — and a plus-6 to hide it.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | ANA | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 25.0 | 13:39 |
| 2024-25 | ANA | 56 | 4 | 9 | 13 | +6 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 6.3 | 16:21 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 59 | 5 | 9 | 14 | +6 | 49 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 67 | 7.5 | 16:13 |
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 56 games for 13 points, plus-6, on 16:21 a night.
40.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 2nd percentile among all skaters in the league. His on-ice goals were 38-28 against an expected 25-37, which is 9 goals of goaltending turning the worst chance share on the roster into a positive rating. The plus-6 is a fiction.
The Finesse Game
Limited. 63 shots in 56 games with 75 per cent of them from beyond 40 feet, and a first pass that is functional rather than quick.
He is a right-shot defenceman who can move a puck out of his own end when nobody is pressuring him, and the margin between that and being pressured is where the season went.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 208, and willing. He is the one man on this blue line under 30 who will clear a crease, and 47 penalty minutes in 56 games is the cost of playing that way and of being beaten often enough to reach.
The frame is right for a defensive defenceman. The feet are the problem.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick, four years at Boston College, and a first real NHL season at 24 in an environment that would flatter nobody.
The honest projection is a third-pair right shot, and the club needs to be careful about the plus-6: it is the single clearest example in this edition of a rating that says the opposite of what happened.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 798 minutes
- Expected goals
- 40.4%
- 2nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 43.9%
- 7th 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: 38 for, 28 against. Expected: 25.2 and 37.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 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 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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 · 798 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
- ANA took 44.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 40.4% — 4.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 798 minutes at five-on-five — 36th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brian Dumoulin | 42.0% | 38.9% | 45.9% |
| Pavel Mintyukov | 38.4% | 41.2% | 45.3% |
| Mason McTavish | 36.3% | 42.2% | 44.1% |
42.0% together, 38.9% for him apart and 45.9% for Dumoulin apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Dumoulin and did not follow 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
91 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 62 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.