This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Lian Bichsel
Dallas Stars Defense
6-7 and 237 pounds at 21, 41 penalty minutes in 38 games, and the most interesting young defenceman in the organisation.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | DAL | 38 | 4 | 5 | 9 | +2 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 39 | 10.3 | 14:53 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 38 | 4 | 5 | 9 | +2 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 39 | 10.3 | 14:53 |
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
4 goals and 5 assists in 38 games for 9 points, plus-2, on 14:53 a night in his first NHL action.
48.9 per cent at five-on-five, the 39th percentile, over 488 minutes. 41 penalty minutes in 38 games is by some distance the highest rate on the club.
The Finesse Game
Raw and improving. The first pass is adequate and he does not panic under a forecheck, which for a 21-year-old defenceman is the meaningful test. 4 goals on 39 shots is a better rate than any regular defenceman here managed.
The skating is the question. For 6-7 it is respectable — he is not a statue and he can turn — but he is beaten wide by NHL speed and he cannot recover, and everything about his development depends on whether that improves.
The Physical Game
6-7 and 237, one of the biggest defencemen in hockey, and he plays like it. He removes men from the front of his net, he ends board battles on arrival, and he is already among the more unpleasant defencemen in the league to forecheck against.
41 penalty minutes in 38 games is the cost. Some of it is the price of playing this way and some of it is a young defenceman using his hands because his feet were late.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick from Switzerland who went to Sweden as a teenager rather than to junior, and arrived in the NHL at 20 without the usual American League apprenticeship.
On a blue line whose top three all defend with position rather than force, he is the answer to a question this club has been asked in each of the last two postseasons. The realistic timeline is two more years before he is trusted with it.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 488 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.9%
- 40th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.3%
- 57th 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: 21 for, 17 against. Expected: 18.5 and 19.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 4 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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
2024-25 · 488 minutes at five-on-five
- Mathew Dumbanow PIT54%
- Esa Lindell12%
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 48.9% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 488 minutes at five-on-five — 16th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathew Dumba | 49.9% | 47.5% | 50.0% |
| Matt Duchene | 40.7% | 52.3% | 52.5% |
| Jason Robertson | 50.0% | 48.5% | 54.1% |
49.9% together, 47.5% for him apart and 50.0% for Dumba 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
56 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 44 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 80% from beyond forty.