This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Emil Lilleberg
Tampa Bay Lightning Defense
105 penalty minutes in 76 games from a third-pairing defenceman with one career goal.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | TBL | 37 | 0 | 5 | 5 | -15 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 0.0 | 16:12 |
| 2024-25 | TBL | 76 | 1 | 18 | 19 | -1 | 105 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 46 | 2.2 | 15:17 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 113 | 1 | 23 | 24 | -16 | 121 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 77 | 1.3 | 15:35 |
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
1 goal and 18 assists in 76 games — 19 points at 15:17 a night, minus-1, with 105 penalty minutes — the most of any defenceman in this edition.
46.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 36th percentile, across 1,054 minutes. His ice went 35-43 against an expectation of 36.10-42.01 — eleven goals better than expected for and five fewer against, on a third pairing.
The Finesse Game
46 attempts in 76 games at a median of 57 feet with 78 per cent from beyond 40, and 1 goal. 1 goal in 113 career NHL games.
18 assists is a respectable number and it comes entirely from the first pass, which is simple and quick. He does not carry the puck and he does not attempt anything ambitious with it.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 215 and this is the entire player. He hits extremely hard, he clears the front of his own net, and he fights.
105 penalty minutes in 76 games, and 121 in 113 career games, which is among the highest rates in the league. He crosses the line deliberately, he answers everything, and the club dresses him for it.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick of Arizona in 2021 out of Norway — one of very few Norwegians ever to hold an NHL job — and he did not come to North America until he was 22.
113 games in two seasons. He is 24, and a third-pairing defenceman who fights and takes a hundred penalty minutes is a role most clubs have given up on filling.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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 hits extremely hard, he clears the front of his own net, and he fights.”
“He hits extremely hard, he clears the front of his own net, and he fights.”
“He crosses the line deliberately, he answers everything, and the club dresses him for it.”
“He crosses the line deliberately, he answers everything, and the club dresses him for it.”
“He does not carry the puck and he does not attempt anything ambitious with it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,054 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.2%
- 21st pct
- Shot attempts
- 49%
- 43rd 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: 35 for, 43 against. Expected: 36.1 and 42.0.
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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 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 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 81st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.58 a game
- Distance
- 2.10 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.2 mph
- 55th 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 · 1054 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
- TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.2% — 4.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,054 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Perbix | 47.3% | 44.3% | 50.9% |
| Jake Guentzel | 49.8% | 44.7% | 54.0% |
| Brayden Point | 47.4% | 45.8% | 52.3% |
47.3% together, 44.3% for him apart and 50.9% for Perbix apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Perbix 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
95 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 61 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.