This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mattias Ekholm
Nashville Predators Defense
The most short-handed ice time per game of the 202 qualified defencemen, at 6-5 and 225 pounds.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | NSH | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 12:25 |
| 2012-13 | NSH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 16:05 |
| 2013-14 | NSH | 62 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -8 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 1.7 | 16:49 |
| 2014-15 | NSH | 80 | 7 | 11 | 18 | +12 | 52 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 86 | 8.1 | 19:01 |
| 2015-16 | NSH | 82 | 8 | 27 | 35 | +14 | 44 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 114 | 7.0 | 20:15 |
| 2016-17 | NSH | 82 | 3 | 20 | 23 | +4 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 120 | 2.5 | 23:28 |
| 2017-18 | NSH | 81 | 10 | 24 | 34 | +25 | 46 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 135 | 7.4 | 23:35 |
| 2018-19 | NSH | 80 | 8 | 36 | 44 | +27 | 47 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 146 | 5.5 | 23:22 |
| 2019-20 | NSH | 68 | 8 | 25 | 33 | -1 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 154 | 5.2 | 23:22 |
| 2020-21 | NSH | 48 | 6 | 17 | 23 | +19 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 110 | 5.5 | 22:52 |
| 2021-22 | NSH | 76 | 6 | 25 | 31 | +14 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 145 | 4.1 | 23:29 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 662 | 57 | 193 | 250 | +104 | 323 | 9 | 3 | 14 | 1069 | 5.3 | 21:49 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
76 games, 6 goals and 25 assists for 31 points at 23:29 a night, plus-14, forty-four penalty minutes. One hundred and second overall in 2009, eleven seasons, 662 games, 250 points, a career plus-104.
The Finesse Game
1.10 even-strength points per 60 is the 68th percentile among defencemen and thirteen per cent of his points came on the power play. 4.88 shots per 60 is the 120th of 202 — ordinary volume from a 51-foot median with thirteen per cent from the slot.
47.8 per cent of the expected goals is the 35th percentile and 48.7 per cent of the attempts the 38th. Those are below-average shares and they came out of a hard chair: 44.6 per cent of his end-zone starts were in the attacking end, the 170th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.
His ice went 65-50 against an expectation of 48.53-52.99 — sixteen goals of finishing surplus going forward and three fewer against than the model asked. The plus-14 is almost entirely the first of those.
Alexandre Carrier is his partner and the pair is neutral: 48.4 per cent together across 1,397 attempts, Ekholm 46.9 apart, Carrier 47.6 apart. Neither man carries the other.
The Physical Game
2.66 hits per 60 is the 28th percentile and 3.23 blocks the 18th at 6-5 and 225 pounds. For a defenceman this size playing these minutes, both figures are strikingly low, and the report cannot say whether that is positioning or reluctance.
0.44 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.74 taken. Forty-four penalty minutes in seventy-six games.
The Intangibles
3:16 short-handed a night is the most of the 202 defencemen who played forty games, on the club that took more short-handed minutes than any other. Ryan McDonagh, who arrives this season, is second at 3:15.
21.7 mph is the 75th of 192 defencemen from the bottom, 1.2 bursts per 60 the 39th percentile, 8.26 miles per 60 the 58th-fewest of the 192. Slow and economical, which is what twenty-three and a half minutes at 6-5 tends to look like.
He is 32 and has spent every one of his eleven seasons here. The blocks and hits are low, the shares are below average, the deployment is genuinely hard, and the one measurable thing he leads the league in is the job nobody counts.
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
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.
“3:16 short-handed a night is the most of the 202 defencemen who played forty games, on the club that took more short-handed minutes than any other.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,381 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.8%
- 37th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.7%
- 43rd 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: 65 for, 50 against. Expected: 48.5 and 53.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 21 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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, 2021-22 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 21.7 mph
- 57th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.47 a game
- Distance
- 3.23 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.4 mph
- 57th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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
2021-22 · 1381 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, 2021-22
- The club
- NSH took 49.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.8% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,381 minutes at five-on-five — 93rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre Carrier | 48.4% | 46.9% | 47.6% |
| Matt Duchene | 50.6% | 46.4% | 53.5% |
| Mikael Granlund | 48.5% | 47.5% | 50.1% |
48.4% together, 46.9% for him apart and 47.6% for Carrier 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
208 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 70% from beyond forty.