This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Erik Cernak
Tampa Bay Lightning Defense
Six-foot-four and 230 pounds, plus-29, and 75 per cent of his shot attempts from beyond 40 feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | TBL | 58 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +25 | 58 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 107 | 4.7 | 19:15 |
| 2019-20 | TBL | 67 | 5 | 7 | 12 | +11 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 125 | 4.0 | 18:57 |
| 2020-21 | TBL | 46 | 5 | 13 | 18 | +8 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 5.9 | 19:47 |
| 2021-22 | TBL | 55 | 1 | 12 | 13 | +7 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 1.2 | 19:09 |
| 2022-23 | TBL | 70 | 2 | 14 | 16 | +8 | 53 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 87 | 2.3 | 19:14 |
| 2023-24 | TBL | 69 | 2 | 11 | 13 | +5 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 53 | 3.8 | 19:11 |
| 2024-25 | TBL | 76 | 3 | 18 | 21 | +29 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 64 | 4.7 | 18:16 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 441 | 23 | 86 | 109 | +93 | 367 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 607 | 3.8 | 19:04 |
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
3 goals and 18 assists in 76 games — 21 points at 18:16 a night, plus-29, with 50 penalty minutes.
51.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 64th percentile. His ice went 45-32 against an expectation of 44.40-42.70 — ten goals better than expected for and five fewer conceded, on a shutdown pairing.
The Finesse Game
64 attempts in 76 games at a median of 55 feet with 75 per cent from beyond 40 and 4 per cent from inside 20, and 3 goals. There is no shot and there is no attempt at one.
18 assists. The puck game is the short pass and the chip off the wall, and under a heavy forecheck the exits are the weakest part of his game.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 230 and among the heaviest hitters in the league. He clears the front of his own net by force, he finishes checks that hurt, and he blocks shots.
50 penalty minutes in 76 games is a high rate and a share of it is deliberate. He crosses the line, he plays with an edge that opponents remember, and he has 367 penalty minutes in 441 career games.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick of Los Angeles in 2015 who was traded here in the Ben Bishop deal before he had played a game — 441 games, a career plus-93 and two Stanley Cups.
He is 28. He has missed time to concussions in three separate seasons, which is the risk that comes with the way he plays.
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
- 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.
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
38% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 6th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“**6-4 and 230 and among the heaviest hitters in the league.** He clears the front of his own net by force, he finishes checks that hurt, and he blocks shots.”
“He clears the front of his own net by force, he finishes checks that hurt, and he blocks shots.”
“He clears the front of his own net by force, he finishes checks that hurt, and he blocks shots.”
“He crosses the line, he plays with an edge that opponents remember, and he has 367 penalty minutes in 441 career games.”
“He crosses the line, he plays with an edge that opponents remember, and he has 367 penalty minutes in 441 career games.”
“The puck game is the short pass and the chip off the wall, and under a heavy forecheck the exits are the weakest part of his game.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,133 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51%
- 63rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.3%
- 36th 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, 32 against. Expected: 44.4 and 42.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 27 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 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 21.9 mph
- 60th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.50 a game
- Distance
- 2.59 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.0 mph
- 68th 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 · 1133 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 51.0% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,133 minutes at five-on-five — 79th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan McDonagh | 51.4% | 48.5% | 54.9% |
| Brandon Hagel | 50.5% | 51.4% | 60.9% |
| Anthony Cirelli | 50.6% | 51.3% | 63.4% |
51.4% together, 48.5% for him apart and 54.9% for McDonagh apart. McDonagh 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
106 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 42 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.