Photo by Martin Rulsch, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Hunter Brzustewicz
Calgary Flames Defense #48
34 games at 21, and nothing yet that says which way it goes.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | CGY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 18:23 |
| 2025-26 | CGY | 34 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 6.1 | 16:08 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 35 | 2 | 5 | 7 | +2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 5.7 | 16:12 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 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
2 goals and 5 assists in 34 games, even in plus-minus, at 16:08 a night. His first NHL season.
The Finesse Game
A puck-mover by trade and not yet by result. The skating is good and the outlet pass is quick, which is the whole reason a third-round pick is playing 16 minutes a night at 21.
45 unblocked attempts, 2 goals, median distance 54 feet and 2 per cent from inside 20. He is a long way from the net and staying there.
5 points in his last 10, which is more than the season rate.
The Physical Game
6 foot even, 190, and slight for the position. 4 penalty minutes in 34 games. There is no defensive-zone physicality yet and it is the thing that will decide whether he stays.
The Intangibles
513 minutes and the numbers say very little: 46.8 per cent of the expected goals, 25th percentile, with the goals 21-19 and the expected goals 18.2 to 20.6. Below the line on a club where everybody was below the line.
He is 21, arrived from Vancouver as part of a trade, and is one of 3 young defencemen Calgary is trying to develop at once on a team with no cover for any of them.
There is not enough here to grade honestly. Ask again in 100 games.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 513 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.8%
- 27th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49%
- 47th 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: 21 for, 19 against. Expected: 18.2 and 20.6.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 21 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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, 2025-26 · 34 games
- Top speed
- 20.7 mph
- 19th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.21 a game
- Distance
- 2.34 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 83.9 mph
- 19th 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 88.9
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.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
5
points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 4 assists, 12 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 513 minutes at five-on-five
- Joel Hanley39%
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, 2025-26
- The club
- CGY took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.8% — 0.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 513 minutes at five-on-five — 18th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joel Hanley | 46.9% | 46.8% | 52.0% |
| Olli Maatta | 49.3% | 45.1% | 48.9% |
| Yegor Sharangovich | 48.1% | 46.3% | 44.2% |
46.9% together, 46.8% for him apart and 52.0% for Hanley apart. Hanley 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
45 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 47 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.