This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ilya Lyubushkin
Dallas Stars Defense
Undrafted, no goals in seventy-four games, five in a 353-game career, and a job that has nothing to do with any of it.
| 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 | BUF | 68 | 2 | 12 | 14 | -2 | 38 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 41 | 4.9 | 15:01 |
| 2023-24 | ANA/TOR | 74 | 0 | 8 | 8 | -11 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 47 | 0.0 | 17:07 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 353 | 5 | 42 | 47 | -33 | 187 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 246 | 2.0 | 15:48 |
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
Seventy-four games in Toronto, no goals and 8 assists, 57 penalty minutes, 17:07 a night and minus-11. He took 47.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,043 minutes, the 33rd percentile, and his ice went 38-51 against an expectation of 40.35-44.74.
Six goals of scoring missing behind him and six extra against. A third-pair defenceman on a club with Toronto’s shooters should not be at 47.4 per cent, and the season is a fair reflection of the level.
The Finesse Game
No goals in 74 games and 5 in 353 across his career at 2.03 per cent — one of the lowest conversion rates any defenceman carries. Forty-seven shots at a median of 46 feet.
Forty-two career assists. The puck leaves his stick to the nearest available teammate and there is no second idea. He does not carry it out of the zone and does not try to.
The Physical Game
He clears the front of his own net and does nothing else, and he does it well enough to have played 353 games without ever scoring. At 6-2 and 206 he is strong on the wall and finishes his checks.
Fifty-seven penalty minutes in 74 games is a moderate rate for a defenceman who plays this way. He blocks shots and takes the front of the net on the penalty kill.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of Moscow, who arrived in Arizona at 24 and has been a third-pair defenceman ever since. A career minus-33 across 353 games is the number of a man who plays the third pair on ordinary clubs.
Dallas has the fourth-best chance suppression in hockey and signed him anyway. He is insurance rather than a plan.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,043 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.4%
- 33rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 45.4%
- 18th 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: 38 for, 51 against. Expected: 40.4 and 44.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 26 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 — 53 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 with ANA · 760 minutes at five-on-five
- Cam Fowler15%
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
- TOR took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.4% — 4.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,043 minutes at five-on-five — 65th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pavel Mintyukov | 44.8% | 50.5% | 49.0% |
| Frank Vatrano | 41.8% | 48.9% | 45.0% |
| Troy Terry | 41.8% | 48.7% | 47.3% |
44.8% together, 50.5% for him apart and 49.0% for Mintyukov apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
66 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 17% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.