Esa Lindell
Dallas Stars Defense #23
Plus thirty, seven hundred and sixty-six games, and the quietest important player in this book.
| Season | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 82 | 6 | 26 | 32 | +30 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 83 | 7.2 | 23:14 |
| Career | 766 | 60 | 189 | 249 | +168 | 178 | 9 | 4 | 8 | 1116 | 5.4 | 22:11 |
Last Season
Six goals and 26 assists in all 82 games — 32 points, plus-30, at 23:14 a night with 1,487 five-on-five minutes, the most on the club.
The Finesse Game
Deliberately minimal. A hundred and twenty unblocked attempts from a median of 44 feet, twelve per cent inside twenty, six goals. Sixty goals in 766 career games.
He makes the first pass and does not carry. Twenty-six assists from that ice time is a low number and nobody in the organisation minds.
The Physical Game
Six foot three, 217, and he defends by taking away time rather than by hitting. Twenty penalty minutes across 82 games of the hardest assignment on a top defensive team is a remarkable figure.
He blocks shots, he kills penalties on the eighth-ranked unit in the league, and he does not get beaten wide.
The Intangibles
Fifty-three point one per cent of the expected goals, 78th percentile — against only 48.1 per cent of the shot attempts, 36th. That gap is the entire Dallas method: let them have the puck on the perimeter, concede nothing from the middle, and win the game that is actually being played.
Nobody in this book illustrates the difference between volume and danger better.
He is 32, a third-round pick, in his eleventh season with one club, and he has never been an All-Star and never will be. Dallas finished fourth in the league in even-strength expected goals against, and he played more of them than anyone.