This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Gustav Forsling
Florida Panthers Defense
Plus-33 — the best rating on the club — and 20 goals of finishing that never arrived.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | CHI | 38 | 2 | 3 | 5 | +3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 4.2 | 14:49 |
| 2017-18 | CHI | 41 | 3 | 10 | 13 | -2 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 82 | 3.7 | 19:09 |
| 2018-19 | CHI | 43 | 3 | 6 | 9 | -9 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 5.3 | 17:05 |
| 2020-21 | FLA | 43 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +17 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 94 | 5.3 | 19:57 |
| 2021-22 | FLA | 71 | 10 | 27 | 37 | +41 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 145 | 6.9 | 21:13 |
| 2022-23 | FLA | 82 | 13 | 28 | 41 | +19 | 40 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 209 | 6.2 | 23:26 |
| 2023-24 | FLA | 79 | 10 | 29 | 39 | +56 | 43 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 160 | 6.3 | 22:09 |
| 2024-25 | FLA | 80 | 11 | 20 | 31 | +33 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 195 | 5.6 | 22:57 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 477 | 57 | 135 | 192 | +158 | 167 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 990 | 5.8 | 20:52 |
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
11 goals and 20 assists in 80 games for 31 points, plus-33 — the best rating on the club — on 22:57 a night and 195 shots.
53.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 81st percentile, over 1,450 minutes. His on-ice goals were 45-45 against an expected 63.0-55.0, which is 18 goals of finishing that did not arrive at one end.
The Finesse Game
The skating and the reading are the tools. He closes gaps at the blue line as well as any defenceman in the league, and he escapes a forecheck by turning away from it rather than by absorbing it.
195 shots and 11 goals with 83 per cent from beyond 40 feet — the offence is entirely keeping pucks alive at the line, and 20 assists is a fair return for a man whose job is the other end. The first pass is quick and almost always right.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 199, and he defends with position rather than weight. He is not a hitter and he is rarely beaten badly enough to need to be.
16 penalty minutes over 80 games at 23 minutes a night is exceptional and is the clearest evidence of how good the reads are.
The Intangibles
A fifth-round pick, waived by two organisations before he was 25, and now one of the three or four best defensive defencemen in the league with two Cups.
At 29 there is no visible decline and the contract is among the most valuable in hockey. With Barkov out, he becomes the single most important player on the roster.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,450 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.4%
- 82nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.7%
- 93rd 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, 45 against. Expected: 63.0 and 55.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 8 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 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
2024-25 · 1450 minutes at five-on-five
- Aaron Ekblad61%
- Seth Jones13%
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
- FLA took 54.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 0.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,450 minutes at five-on-five — 98th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Ekblad | 53.7% | 52.9% | 53.8% |
| Sam Reinhart | 58.3% | 50.3% | 55.7% |
| Aleksander Barkov | 59.1% | 50.5% | 57.2% |
53.7% together, 52.9% for him apart and 53.8% for Ekblad apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
268 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 46 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.