This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mattias Ekholm
Edmonton Oilers Defense
Forty-seven slap shots that produced three goals, and the only Edmonton blue line pairing whose ice beat its expectation at the back.
| 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 | NSH/EDM | 78 | 9 | 23 | 32 | +28 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 135 | 6.7 | 21:29 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 740 | 66 | 216 | 282 | +132 | 351 | 9 | 3 | 14 | 1204 | 5.5 | 21:47 |
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
9 goals and 23 assists in 78 games across Nashville and Edmonton, plus-28, 21:29 a night.
55.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,353 minutes, the 91st percentile, with his ice at 63-45 against an expectation of 64.43-50.86. Almost exactly as the chances predicted at the offensive end and six better at the defensive one — the only Edmonton defenceman whose ice beat its expectation at the back.
Twelve seasons, 740 games, 282 points.
The Finesse Game
135 shots at a median of 49 feet, 68 per cent from beyond forty, 11 per cent from inside twenty.
Beyond forty: 80 shots on goal, three goals, 3.75 per cent — above the league rate for a defenceman, which on this blue line makes him the exception. Inside forty: 44 shots, six goals, 13.64 per cent.
47 slap shots, third-most across these five clubs. Edmonton’s defencemen took 163 slap shots between Bouchard, Ekholm, Kulak and Nurse, which on a blue line that scored ten goals from beyond forty feet is a lot of wind-up for very little.
93.8 mph at the 70th percentile.
The Physical Game
6-5 and 225, and among the slower defencemen in the league: 21.2 mph at the 7th percentile with 0.3 bursts over twenty a game at the 14th.
2.97 miles a game at the 79th percentile. Heavy mileage, no pace — the ordinary shape, and at 33 it is not going to change.
49.2 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 42nd percentile, which is very close to even and means the possession share was not bought with deployment.
28 penalty minutes in 78 games is a low rate for a man that size. He defends with reach and position, which is the only way a 21.2 mph defenceman survives 21 minutes a night.
The Intangibles
102nd overall in 2009 out of Borlänge, eleven and a half seasons in Nashville, and a deadline trade to Edmonton in February.
He has been one of the more underrated defencemen of his generation — a fourth-round pick who played 23 minutes a night for a decade on a club that was very good at defending and never said much about it.
Edmonton gave up Tyson Barrie and a first-round pick and signed him for four more years at 32. The possession numbers say he was the best defenceman on the club the moment he arrived; the tracking says the clock is running.
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
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.
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He defends with reach and position, which is the only way a 21.2 mph defenceman survives 21 minutes a night.”
“the only Edmonton defenceman whose ice beat its expectation at the back”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,353 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55.9%
- 91st pct
- Shot attempts
- 54.2%
- 86th 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: 63 for, 45 against. Expected: 64.4 and 50.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 21 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 78 games
- Top speed
- 21.2 mph
- 36th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.32 a game
- Distance
- 2.97 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.8 mph
- 62nd 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 90.0
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 with NSH · 990 minutes at five-on-five
- Dante Fabbro15%
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
- EDM took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.9% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,353 minutes at five-on-five — 92nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre Carrier | 54.6% | 56.5% | 42.3% |
| Nino Niederreiter | 57.2% | 55.5% | 51.1% |
| Evan Bouchard | 61.6% | 54.1% | 56.3% |
54.6% together, 56.5% for him apart and 42.3% for Carrier apart. Carrier was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Carrier than for him.
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
184 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.