Photo by Jenn G from Seattle, WA, CC BY-SA 2.0

Justin Brazeau

6-6, undrafted, and 69 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2023-24	BOS	19	5	2	7	+4	2	2	0	1	31	16.1	11:07
2024-25	BOS/MIN	76	11	11	22	-9	18	4	0	3	89	12.4	11:52
2025-26	PIT	64	17	17	34	+5	14	3	0	4	104	16.4	12:39
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	159	33	30	63	0	34	9	0	8	224	14.7	12:05

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

17 goals and 17 assists in 64 games — 34 points, plus-5, at 12:39 a night with 14 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is one of the 2 most extreme in this edition. 69 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside 20 feet, with a median of 16 and only 6 per cent from beyond 40.

Only Zach Hyman, at 74 per cent, works from closer as a share of attempts. 17 goals from 156 tries is what happens when a 6-6 man decides the only place worth standing is the crease.

17 assists is more than the role usually returns.

The Physical Game

6-6 and 232, and immovable in front of a goaltender. 14 penalty minutes in 64 games is remarkably low for a player his size, and it is the criticism: he occupies space rather than imposing on it.

The skating is poor and it is why a man scoring at this rate gets 12 minutes.

The Intangibles

51.9 per cent of the expected goals, 70th percentile, with the goals 41 for and 32 against across 748 minutes — the second-most lopsided margin on the club.

Undrafted out of the Ontario league, 159 NHL games, 63 points.

He is 28, and on the evidence of that shot chart he is one of the more playoff-shaped forwards in this book. A checking series takes away open ice; it does not take away the front of the net.

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

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.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
76.9% of his attempts in the slot, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 748 minutes

Expected goals: 51.9%; 70th pct
Shot attempts: 49%; 47th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 32 against. Expected: 33.5 and 31.0.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

33rd

Numbers

70th

The numbers rank him 37 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 — 69 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 · 64 games

Top speed: 21.5 mph; 19th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.58 a game
Distance: 1.99 miles a game
Hardest shot: 85.7 mph; 55th 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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 3 assists, 16 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 748 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, 2025-26

The club: PIT took 51.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.9% — 0.1 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 748 minutes at five-on-five — 34th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Anthony Mantha	52.3%	51.1%	49.4%
Ben Kindel	53.2%	51.1%	53.0%
Ryan Shea	54.8%	50.3%	51.7%

52.3% together, 51.1% for him apart and 49.4% for Mantha 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

156 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 17 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 70% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.