This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Esa Lindell
Dallas Stars Defense
Twelve penalty minutes in all eighty-two games, five goals, and a plus-17 on twenty and a half minutes a night.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | DAL | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 14:03 |
| 2016-17 | DAL | 73 | 6 | 12 | 18 | +8 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 99 | 6.1 | 21:52 |
| 2017-18 | DAL | 80 | 7 | 20 | 27 | +19 | 24 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 137 | 5.1 | 22:05 |
| 2018-19 | DAL | 82 | 11 | 21 | 32 | +14 | 33 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 132 | 8.3 | 24:20 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 69 | 3 | 20 | 23 | +5 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 98 | 3.1 | 23:25 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 56 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +11 | 19 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100 | 5.0 | 23:11 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 76 | 4 | 21 | 25 | +4 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 136 | 2.9 | 22:03 |
| 2022-23 | DAL | 82 | 8 | 16 | 24 | +29 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 116 | 6.9 | 19:55 |
| 2023-24 | DAL | 82 | 5 | 21 | 26 | +17 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 114 | 4.4 | 20:28 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 604 | 49 | 142 | 191 | +104 | 144 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 934 | 5.3 | 22:03 |
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
All 82 games, 5 goals and 21 assists, 12 penalty minutes, 20:28 a night and plus-17. He took 55.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,355 minutes, the 89th percentile, and his ice went 66-57 against an expectation of 61.55-50.18.
Twelve penalty minutes across a full season is one of the lowest rates of any defenceman in this edition who played eighty games, and it is on a man taking the second-hardest defensive assignment on the club.
The Finesse Game
There is no offence. Five goals last season and 49 in 604 career games at 5.25 per cent; 114 shots at a median of 48 feet with 63 per cent from beyond 40.
One hundred and forty-two career assists is a third-pair rate on a first-pair defenceman, and it is a choice rather than a limitation — the first pass is the safe one every time, and on a club that suppresses chances at the fourth-best rate in hockey the safe one is correct.
The Physical Game
He defends the rush with reach at 6-3, and the stick arrives before the forward has finished deciding what to do with the puck. Twelve penalty minutes in 82 games is the arithmetic of never being late.
He blocks shots and clears the front of his own net at 217 pounds, and he does it without the cross-checking that usually goes with it. He has 4 career shorthanded goals and kills penalties as a first option.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2012 out of Vantaa, nine seasons in one organisation, 604 games and a career plus-104. He has played 22:03 a night across all of them and has never been discussed.
He is 30 and there is nothing in his game that ages badly, because none of it was ever built on speed.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,355 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55.1%
- 89th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.3%
- 58th 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: 66 for, 57 against. Expected: 61.5 and 50.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 53 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 61 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
2023-24 · 1355 minutes at five-on-five
- Jani Hakanpäänow TOR45%
- Chris Tanevnow TOR16%
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
- DAL took 54.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.1% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,355 minutes at five-on-five — 92nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jani Hakanpää | 54.3% | 55.7% | 45.2% |
| Jason Robertson | 56.7% | 54.5% | 57.9% |
| Mason Marchment | 55.7% | 54.9% | 51.1% |
54.3% together, 55.7% for him apart and 45.2% for Hakanpää apart. Hakanpää was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Hakanpää 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
160 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 63% from beyond forty.