This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Justin Kirkland
Calgary Flames Center
21 games at 29, 8 points, and a career American Leaguer getting a look.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | ANA | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 7:13 |
| 2023-24 | ARI | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 7:14 |
| 2024-25 | CGY | 21 | 2 | 6 | 8 | +6 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 22.2 | 9:42 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 30 | 2 | 6 | 8 | +3 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 13.3 | 8:57 |
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
2 goals and 6 assists in 21 games for 8 points, plus-6, on 9:42 a night.
9 shots in 21 games is almost nothing, and 8 points from that volume is a small-sample curiosity rather than a finding.
The Finesse Game
Limited at this level. The hands are functional and the shot is not a threat, and there is nothing in nine professional seasons that suggests otherwise.
What he does is play a simple, structured game and not lose the puck in a dangerous place, which is the whole requirement of a thirteenth forward.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 183, and lean. He forechecks honestly and does not win many battles by force at NHL weight.
11 penalty minutes in 21 games. Too small a sample to read.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick a decade ago, hundreds of American League games, and a first meaningful NHL stretch at 29.
The realistic projection is depth. He is on this roster to be recallable and reliable, and that is a genuine job.
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
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
- 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.
“He forechecks honestly and does not win many battles by force at NHL weight.”
“He forechecks honestly and does not win many battles by force at NHL weight.”
“What he does is play a simple, structured game and not lose the puck in a dangerous place, which is the whole requirement of a thirteenth forward.”
The numbers underneath
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 21 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 32nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.86 a game
- Distance
- 1.59 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 82.3 mph
- 30th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 182 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Lomberg71%
- Anthony Manthanow PIT15%
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.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
22 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.