This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Evan Bouchard
Edmonton Oilers Defense
67 points and a 58.5 per cent chance share, and 13 goals of finishing that never arrived.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | EDM | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10.0 | 12:21 |
| 2020-21 | EDM | 14 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 5.3 | 14:50 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 81 | 12 | 31 | 43 | +10 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 205 | 5.9 | 19:48 |
| 2022-23 | EDM | 82 | 8 | 32 | 40 | +6 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 156 | 5.1 | 18:31 |
| 2023-24 | EDM | 81 | 18 | 64 | 82 | +34 | 32 | 8 | 0 | 7 | 220 | 8.2 | 23:00 |
| 2024-25 | EDM | 82 | 14 | 53 | 67 | +14 | 32 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 235 | 6.0 | 23:28 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 347 | 55 | 183 | 238 | +57 | 124 | 17 | 0 | 12 | 864 | 6.4 | 20:46 |
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
14 goals and 53 assists in 82 games for 67 points, plus-14, on 23:28 a night and 235 shots.
58.3 per cent at five-on-five, the 98th percentile, over 1,468 minutes. His on-ice goals were 66-63 against an expected 79.2-56.6 — thirteen goals that should have been scored and were not, and six more against than the chances called for.
The Finesse Game
The shot is the best from the point in the league. It is heavy, it is released quickly from a set position, and 235 attempts is the volume of a man who is the primary offensive option on a power play containing Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
The passing is the equal skill and the more valuable one — 53 assists comes from a stretch pass that turns a defensive-zone retrieval into a rush, which is the single most distinctive thing this club does. He is a genuinely elite offensive defenceman.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 192, and light for the height. He does not clear a crease, does not win a battle below the goal line by force, and defends with stick and position.
32 penalty minutes over 82 games. The durability has been excellent — three consecutive full seasons at 23 minutes a night.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick, two Cup finals, and a reputation among casual observers that is far worse than the record — the defensive lapses are memorable and the 98th-percentile chance share is not.
At 25 on a large new contract, the honest reading is that he is one of the five most productive defencemen in the league and genuinely below average at defending the rush. Both are true and the first is worth more.
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.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
58.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 51.5% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.8, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“53 assists comes from a stretch pass that turns a defensive-zone retrieval into a rush”
“He does not clear a crease”
“does not win a battle below the goal line by force”
“6-3 and 192, and light for the height.”
“genuinely below average at defending the rush”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,468 minutes
- Expected goals
- 58.3%
- 98th pct
- Shot attempts
- 59.1%
- 98th 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, 63 against. Expected: 79.2 and 56.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 22 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 — 77 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 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.3 mph
- 74th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.84 a game
- Distance
- 3.37 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 98.8 mph
- 94th 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 · 1468 minutes at five-on-five
- Brett Kulak12%
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
- EDM took 54.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.3% — 4.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,468 minutes at five-on-five — 98th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mattias Ekholm | 59.6% | 55.7% | 59.7% |
| Connor McDavid | 61.8% | 53.4% | 57.1% |
| Zach Hyman | 61.9% | 55.0% | 60.6% |
59.6% together, 55.7% for him apart and 59.7% for Ekholm apart. He was worse away from Ekholm, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Ekholm did.
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
319 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.