This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Ilya Lyubushkin

A right-shot defensive defenceman who played 80 games on the top pair, and 1 goal.

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	DAL	80	1	13	14	+5	32	0	0	0	51	2.0	17:23
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	433	6	55	61	-28	219	0	1	1	297	2.0	16:06

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

1 goal and 13 assists in 80 games for 14 points, plus-5, on 17:23 a night.

49.3 per cent at five-on-five, the 46th percentile, over 1,121 minutes, largely beside Thomas Harley. His on-ice goals were 45-43 against an expected 47-49, which is a pairing that got considerably better results than the run of play deserved.

The Finesse Game

Essentially none. 51 shots in 80 games with 81 per cent of them from beyond 40 feet, and 1 goal; the first pass is short, safe and frequently to the boards.

The puck leaves his stick quickly, which on a club with this much skill up front is enough. He is not asked to make a play and he does not attempt one.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 206, and this is the entire reason he has a job. He hits, he clears the crease, and he is willing to take a run at anybody in the league.

32 penalty minutes across a full season is about right for the style, and he does not lose his head. On a blue line where Heiskanen, Harley and Lundkvist all defend with position, he is the one who defends with weight.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, arrived in North America at 24, and has now played six NHL seasons on five clubs as the man a contender adds in March.

The honest reading is that the results flattered him last season by roughly 10 goals. He is a serviceable third-pair defenceman being used on the top pair because Heiskanen was hurt, and a club that finishes 27th in expected goals against should not be comfortable with that arrangement continuing.

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
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
38% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 7th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
transitionhe lacks it· carries it out; gains the line under control
“the first pass is short, safe and frequently to the boards”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“He hits, he clears the crease, and he is willing to take a run at anybody in the league.”
clears-the-creasea strength· moves grown men off the front of his net
“he clears the crease”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“On a blue line where Heiskanen, Harley and Lundkvist all defend with position, he is the one who defends with weight.”
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“Undrafted, arrived in North America at 24, and has now played six NHL seasons on five clubs as the man a contender adds in March.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,121 minutes

Expected goals: 49.3%; 47th pct
Shot attempts: 46.7%; 23rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 45 for, 43 against. Expected: 47.2 and 48.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

25th

Numbers

47th

The 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 — 68 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 · 80 games

Top speed: 21.2 mph; 31st pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.21 a game
Distance: 2.46 miles a game
Hardest shot: 90.9 mph; 52nd pct

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 · 1121 minutes at five-on-five

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: DAL took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.3% — 1.4 below the club he did it on.
The role: First pair, 1,121 minutes at five-on-five — 78th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Thomas Harley	48.7%	49.7%	54.9%
Wyatt Johnston	46.2%	50.6%	51.8%
Matt Duchene	50.5%	48.7%	51.3%

48.7% together, 49.7% for him apart and 54.9% for Harley apart. Harley 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

94 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 81% from beyond forty.