This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Kirby Dach
Montreal Canadiens Center
Third overall in 2019, ninety-four shots from inside forty feet, and the seventh percentile for registered shot speed.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | CHI | 64 | 8 | 15 | 23 | -1 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 101 | 7.9 | 14:16 |
| 2020-21 | CHI | 18 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 7.7 | 18:34 |
| 2021-22 | CHI | 70 | 9 | 17 | 26 | -18 | 43 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 7.8 | 18:03 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 58 | 14 | 24 | 38 | -2 | 43 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 107 | 13.1 | 18:30 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 210 | 33 | 64 | 97 | -24 | 114 | 9 | 0 | 4 | 350 | 9.4 | 17:04 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
14 goals and 24 assists in 58 games — 38 points — with six on the power play. Minus-2, 18:30 a night, 107 shots at 13.1 per cent, 43 penalty minutes.
Thirty-eight points in fifty-eight games at twenty-two, after 59 points in 152 Chicago games across three seasons. The trade changed him.
49.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 43rd percentile — the best figure of any forward in a Montreal shirt who played more than half the season — with his ice at 37-33 against an expectation of 33.17-34.58.
On a club that finished thirtieth in chance generation, being the only forward near fifty per cent is the strongest thing in his file.
Four seasons, 210 games, 97 points.
The Finesse Game
107 shots at a median of 17 feet, 58 per cent from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty — the closest shot chart of any Montreal forward.
Beyond forty: 11 shots on goal and no goals. Inside forty: 94 shots, 14 goals, 14.89 per cent.
Eleven long shots in fifty-eight games. He does not throw pucks at the net from range and never has, which on a 6-4 centre is exactly right.
23 backhands and 22 snap shots out of 151 tracked attempts.
83.5 mph at the 7th percentile — the softest registered shot on the club and one of the softest in the book. He took eight slap shots all season, so the number is recording a choice as much as a limit; what it does not explain away is fourteen goals on 107 shots from very good positions.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 221, and 43 penalty minutes.
Top speed 23.2 mph, the 92nd percentile; bursts 2.1 a game, the 87th; 3.09 miles a game, the 84th. For a man of that size those are unusual readings and they are the reason he went third overall.
He protects the puck through contact and can carry it through the neutral zone against a gap, which is the specific skill Montreal did not otherwise have.
What he does not do is finish checks or play heavy below the goal line. At 221 pounds that is a large amount of unused mass.
The Intangibles
Third overall in 2019 out of Saskatoon, traded to Montreal at twenty-one on the draft floor, and a career that restarted immediately.
56.5 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 80th percentile, which takes some of the shine off the 43rd-percentile chance share.
He is twenty-two, plays eighteen minutes at centre, moves at the 92nd percentile at 6-4, and shot 13 per cent. The reservation is the shot speed and the fifty-eight games; the case is that Chicago had a top-six centre and did not know it.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
49.0% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 42.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.2, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“He protects the puck through contact and can carry it through the neutral zone against a gap, which is the specific skill Montreal did not otherwise have.”
“He protects the puck through contact and can carry it through the neutral zone against a gap, which is the specific skill Montreal did not otherwise have.”
“What he does not do is finish checks or play heavy below the goal line.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 816 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49%
- 43rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 47th 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: 37 for, 33 against. Expected: 33.2 and 34.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 35 points above where the numbers do. 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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, 2022-23 · 58 games
- Top speed
- 23.2 mph
- 93rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.09 a game
- Distance
- 3.09 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 83.5 mph
- 29th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.9
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
2022-23 · 816 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Suzuki51%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- MTL took 44.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.0% — 5.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 816 minutes at five-on-five — 40th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 51.6% | 46.2% | 39.6% |
| Cole Caufield | 51.9% | 45.8% | 31.9% |
| Jordan Harris | 52.4% | 47.4% | 45.3% |
51.6% together, 46.2% for him apart and 39.6% for Suzuki apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
151 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 58% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.