This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Martin Necas
Colorado Avalanche Center
The return for Mikko Rantanen, an 83-point season, and the fastest man on the roster with the puck on his stick.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | CAR | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:54 |
| 2018-19 | CAR | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 16.7 | 10:01 |
| 2019-20 | CAR | 64 | 16 | 20 | 36 | -6 | 20 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 88 | 18.2 | 14:10 |
| 2020-21 | CAR | 53 | 14 | 27 | 41 | +25 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 114 | 12.3 | 17:17 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 78 | 14 | 26 | 40 | +5 | 32 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 159 | 8.8 | 16:11 |
| 2022-23 | CAR | 82 | 28 | 43 | 71 | +5 | 32 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 240 | 11.7 | 18:25 |
| 2023-24 | CAR | 77 | 24 | 29 | 53 | -9 | 42 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 231 | 10.4 | 17:21 |
| 2024-25 | CAR/COL | 79 | 27 | 56 | 83 | +5 | 16 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 194 | 13.9 | 19:00 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 441 | 124 | 202 | 326 | +25 | 154 | 40 | 3 | 28 | 1032 | 12.0 | 17:02 |
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
27 goals and 56 assists in 79 games for 83 points between Carolina and Colorado, plus-5, on 19:00 a night — a career year by 30 points, and it did not fall off after the trade.
54.8 per cent at five-on-five, the 89th percentile. 194 shots from a median of 32 feet with a quarter of them inside 20, and a 13.9 per cent conversion rate that is above his career mark and worth watching.
The Finesse Game
Among the quickest forwards in the league with the puck, and he uses it the right way: he enters with control rather than chasing a dump-in, which is the difference between speed that produces offence and speed that produces a forecheck. The hands work at that pace, which is what makes him more than a track athlete — he can beat a defenceman wide and still make a play at the end of it.
The shot is better than its reputation. 27 goals from 194 shots is a real finisher, and he is willing to take the puck to the middle rather than living on his off-wing perimeter, which was the criticism of him at 22 and is no longer true at 26.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 195, and none of it shows up as force. He does not forecheck heavily and does not win pucks along the wall; when a defenceman gets a body on him the play is usually over. 16 penalty minutes is a man who is nowhere near the traffic.
The size is useful defensively — long stick, decent reach on the backcheck — but he is a perimeter player physically and nothing in eight seasons suggests that changes.
The Intangibles
He was traded for one of the best wingers alive and immediately played the best hockey of his career, which is not nothing: some players never recover from being the other name in that sentence.
The reservation is history. It took him seven seasons to become this, and the seasons before it included stretches where the effort visibly came and went. One year at 83 points is evidence; it is not yet a habit, and Colorado is paying for the habit.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,086 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.8%
- 90th pct
- Shot attempts
- 58.3%
- 97th 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: 47 for, 47 against. Expected: 52.3 and 43.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 22 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 237 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 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 with CAR · 650 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, 2024-25
- The club
- COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.8% — 1.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,086 minutes at five-on-five — 73rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesperi Kotkaniemi | 52.7% | 56.3% | 57.3% |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 64.3% | 51.0% | 56.6% |
| Artturi Lehkonen | 61.5% | 52.1% | 54.0% |
52.7% together, 56.3% for him apart and 57.3% for Kotkaniemi apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
294 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 24% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.