This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Kevin Bahl
Calgary Flames Defense
Six foot six and 230 pounds, eighty-two penalty minutes in eighty-two games, and one goal.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | NJD | 7 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 16:55 |
| 2021-22 | NJD | 17 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -6 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 6.3 | 15:45 |
| 2022-23 | NJD | 42 | 2 | 6 | 8 | +4 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 7.4 | 14:01 |
| 2023-24 | NJD | 82 | 1 | 10 | 11 | +1 | 82 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 1.6 | 17:24 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 148 | 4 | 21 | 25 | -1 | 127 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 111 | 3.6 | 16:14 |
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
1 goal and 10 assists in all 82 games for New Jersey — 11 points at 17:24 a night, plus-1, with 1 game-winner on 63 shots at 1.59 per cent, and 82 penalty minutes.
51.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,267 minutes, the 61st percentile — the best mark of any defenceman on this roster. His ice went 62-54 against an expectation of 50.32-48.16 — eleven goals scored above expectation and seven conceded above it.
The Finesse Game
63 attempts at a median of 55 feet, with 79 per cent from beyond 40 and 1 per cent from inside 20, converting at 1.59 per cent. Four goals in 148 NHL games.
10 assists. He does not carry the puck out and the first pass is short and safe, and there is no offensive dimension here at all. The club does not want one.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 230, and he is the largest man on this roster. He clears the front of his own net by moving grown men out of it and he finishes his checks.
82 penalty minutes in 82 games and 127 in 148 for his career. He takes liberties, and on a blue line whose two best players both defend with position rather than force, he is the entire physical dimension.
The Intangibles
Fifty-fifth overall in 2018 by Arizona, traded to New Jersey in the Taylor Hall deal, and 148 games at 24 with a career minus-1.
He arrived here in the Jacob Markstrom trade. A club that lost Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev has replaced part of them with a 6-6 twenty-four-year-old who has never scored, and the sixty-second percentile of chances says the trade-off is a real one.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,267 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.1%
- 61st pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.4%
- 50th 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: 62 for, 54 against. Expected: 50.3 and 48.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 25 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 — 61 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 NJD · 1267 minutes at five-on-five
- John Marinonow UTA44%
- Simon Nemec16%
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
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.1% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,267 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Marino | 50.4% | 51.6% | 48.1% |
| Timo Meier | 52.8% | 50.3% | 46.1% |
| Jesper Bratt | 57.2% | 48.1% | 55.4% |
50.4% together, 51.6% for him apart and 48.1% for Marino 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
94 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 79% from beyond forty.