This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ilya Lyubushkin
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Eight and a third hits per 60 at the 90th percentile, a 100.4 mph shot he takes 2.41 times per 60, and 3 per cent of it from the slot — the 1st percentile.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | ARI | 41 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -9 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 13:44 |
| 2019-20 | ARI | 51 | 0 | 4 | 4 | +4 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 0.0 | 14:11 |
| 2020-21 | ARI | 42 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -13 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 2.8 | 15:42 |
| 2021-22 | ARI/TOR | 77 | 2 | 13 | 15 | -2 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 54 | 3.7 | 17:27 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 211 | 3 | 22 | 25 | -20 | 92 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 158 | 1.9 | 15:35 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
With Arizona, then Toronto. 2 goals and 13 assists in 77 games — 15 points at 17:27 a night, minus-2, on 54 shots and 51 penalty minutes.
47.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,182 minutes, the 31st percentile among defencemen — a figure earned across the league’s worst possession club and then one of its best. His ice went 44-52 against an expectation of 39.81-44.98.
1:53 a night shorthanded, and two seconds of power play across the season.
The Finesse Game
The shot leaves at 100.4 mph, the 93rd percentile among defencemen — and he takes 2.41 attempts per 60, the 2nd percentile, with 3 per cent of them from inside the slot, the 1st. Fifty-four attempts in 77 games from a man with one of the hardest shots at the position.
0.70 even-strength points per 60 is the 24th percentile and 25 points in 211 career games. There is no offensive intention here whatsoever, and the club is not asking for one.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 206, and this is the job. 8.35 hits per 60 is the 90th percentile among defencemen with 4.11 blocks at the 50th. He finishes every check available and a few that are not.
1.07 penalties taken per 60 is the 87th percentile and minus-0.58 on drawn against taken is the 11th. The physicality costs a power play more often than most, and on Buffalo’s 25th-ranked kill that arithmetic is unhelpful.
Top speed 22.0 mph at the 52nd percentile with 0.7 bursts above 20 mph per 60 at the 20th. He is not quick and he does not have to be for the way he plays — until a forward with speed goes wide.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, seven seasons in the KHL, and an NHL debut with Arizona at twenty-four, then 211 games across Arizona, Toronto and now Buffalo.
He is 28, signed for two years. Buffalo’s blue line is a twenty-two-year-old first-overall pick, a twenty-two-year-old second-rounder and a 5-9 fourth-rounder — and a heavy right shot who hits at the 90th percentile is the specific thing it did not have.
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.
- 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.
“8.35 hits per 60 is the 90th percentile among defencemen”
“1.07 penalties taken per 60 is the 87th percentile and minus-0.58 on drawn against taken is the 11th”
“Undrafted, seven seasons in the KHL, and an NHL debut with Arizona at twenty-four”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,182 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47%
- 32nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.4%
- 39th 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: 44 for, 52 against. Expected: 39.8 and 45.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 10 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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, 2021-22 · 77 games
- Top speed
- 22.0 mph
- 67th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.21 a game
- Distance
- 2.45 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.4 mph
- 95th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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
2021-22 with ARI · 707 minutes at five-on-five
- Cam Dineenoff the roster14%
- Conor Timmins9%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- TOR took 54.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.0% — 7.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,182 minutes at five-on-five — 84th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morgan Rielly | 51.0% | 45.3% | 53.6% |
| Jakob Chychrun | 43.3% | 47.9% | 46.0% |
| Clayton Keller | 42.6% | 47.8% | 47.0% |
51.0% together, 45.3% for him apart and 53.6% for Rielly apart. He was worse away from Rielly, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Rielly 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
75 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.