This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Maxim Tsyplakov
New York Islanders Right Wing
An undrafted KHL free agent who arrived at 26 and posted the 84th percentile in chance share on a club that missed the playoffs.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | NYI | 77 | 10 | 25 | 35 | +4 | 39 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 116 | 8.6 | 14:58 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 77 | 10 | 25 | 35 | +4 | 39 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 116 | 8.6 | 14:58 |
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
77 games in his first NHL season, 10 goals and 25 assists for 35 points at 14:58 a night, on 116 shots at 8.62 per cent. 39 penalty minutes. Plus-4.
A 53.7 per cent chance share is the 84th percentile in the league and the best of any forward here who played a full season, with on-ice goals of 45-27 against an expected 42.59-36.78. He controlled play and his line conceded ten fewer goals than the chances warranted. That is a first NHL season a great many first-round picks would take.
The Finesse Game
44 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 22. He goes to the net and he shoots from there, and 8.62 per cent on 116 attempts is an ordinary conversion rate on a good location profile.
The passing is the better half — 25 assists at fifteen minutes a night, delivered on time and into space. He holds the puck an extra beat on the wall and finds the man arriving, which is a KHL habit that has translated without adjustment.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 203 and genuinely willing along the wall. He wins pucks he should not and he finishes checks, and 39 penalty minutes is slightly high for a fifteen-minute role.
The skating is the limitation and it is a real one — he is not going to beat an NHL defenceman wide, and everything he creates has to come from below the goal line or off a cycle.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, six seasons in the KHL, and signed as a free agent at 26 after leading Spartak Moscow in scoring.
He posted better underlying numbers than every forward on this roster except a man who played thirty games. That is a genuine find, and the age is why nobody bid for him — a 26-year-old rookie has no development curve left, only the season he just had.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 977 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.7%
- 84th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.5%
- 78th 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: 45 for, 27 against. Expected: 42.6 and 36.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 58 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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 · 977 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
- NYI took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.7% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 977 minutes at five-on-five — 57th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Palmieri | 53.7% | 53.6% | 45.0% |
| Brock Nelson | 54.6% | 52.7% | 45.3% |
| Noah Dobson | 56.5% | 52.3% | 53.4% |
53.7% together, 53.6% for him apart and 45.0% for Palmieri apart. Palmieri was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Palmieri 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
189 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 44% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.