This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mika Zibanejad
New York Rangers Center
The 4th-hardest shot of 365 forwards, the 5th-percentile penalty rate, and 1,726 attempts beside Chris Kreider.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | OTT | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0.0 | 12:54 |
| 2012-13 | OTT | 42 | 7 | 13 | 20 | +9 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 7.8 | 13:34 |
| 2013-14 | OTT | 69 | 16 | 17 | 33 | -15 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 153 | 10.5 | 14:20 |
| 2014-15 | OTT | 80 | 20 | 26 | 46 | 0 | 20 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 13.3 | 16:26 |
| 2015-16 | OTT | 81 | 21 | 30 | 51 | -2 | 18 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 184 | 11.4 | 17:46 |
| 2016-17 | NYR | 56 | 14 | 23 | 37 | +9 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 119 | 11.8 | 17:04 |
| 2017-18 | NYR | 72 | 27 | 20 | 47 | -23 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 4 | 212 | 12.7 | 17:58 |
| 2018-19 | NYR | 82 | 30 | 44 | 74 | -12 | 47 | 11 | 2 | 5 | 236 | 12.7 | 20:34 |
| 2019-20 | NYR | 57 | 41 | 34 | 75 | +9 | 14 | 15 | 3 | 6 | 208 | 19.7 | 21:38 |
| 2020-21 | NYR | 56 | 24 | 26 | 50 | +2 | 18 | 10 | 2 | 7 | 171 | 14.0 | 20:06 |
| 2021-22 | NYR | 81 | 29 | 52 | 81 | +30 | 12 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 219 | 13.2 | 19:38 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 685 | 229 | 286 | 515 | +4 | 185 | 81 | 10 | 34 | 1754 | 13.1 | 17:59 |
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
81 games, 29 goals and 52 assists for 81 points at 19:38 a night, plus-30, twelve penalty minutes, 219 shots. Sixth overall in 2011 by Ottawa, eleven seasons, 685 games, 515 points.
Eighty-one points is his best full-season total, beating the 75 of 2019-20 in fifty-seven games.
The Finesse Game
100.3 mph is the 4th-hardest shot of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, behind Tage Thompson, Patrik Laine and Alex Ovechkin.
8.26 shots per 60 is the 65th percentile at 13.2 per cent, from a 29-foot median in the 82nd with forty-two per cent from the slot in the 18th. He shoots from range because the shot travels, and it is the same chart as the three men above him.
2.40 even-strength points per 60 is the 80th percentile and thirty-five per cent of his points came on the power play, from 2:59 a night at the 85th.
2.34 takeaways per 60 is the 89th percentile against 2.19 giveaways.
50.0 per cent of the expected goals is exactly median, out of 48.0 per cent offensive-zone starts — the harder half, the 395th of 652 skaters. His ice went 55-39 against an expectation of 45.07-45.10: ten goals of surplus going forward and six fewer against than the model asked, which is where the plus-30 came from.
The Physical Game
2.53 hits per 60 is the 29th percentile and 1.77 blocks the 53rd at 6-2 and 208.
0.23 penalties taken per 60 is the 5th percentile and twelve penalty minutes came out of eighty-one games — six minor penalties in a full season at nearly twenty minutes a night.
The Intangibles
23.3 mph is the 91st percentile among forwards and 9.1 bursts over 20 mph per 60 the 84th, at 6-2 and 208 pounds. 9.89 miles per 60 is the 70th — genuinely fast, sprinting often, working an ordinary amount.
He is 29 and this is his sixth season in New York. The shot speed, the top speed and the discipline are three of the best figures in this chapter and none of them is a scoring number.
He and Chris Kreider took 53.1 per cent of the attempts across 1,726 of them together, and were separated so rarely that the apart samples are too small to read. The pair is the club’s first line and the record cannot divide it.
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.15 penalty minutes a game over 81, 7th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“23.3 mph is the 91st percentile among forwards and 9.1 bursts over 20 mph per 60 the 84th, at 6-2 and 208 pounds.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,130 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50%
- 56th 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: 55 for, 39 against. Expected: 45.1 and 45.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 31 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 — 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, 2021-22 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 23.3 mph
- 94th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.98 a game
- Distance
- 3.24 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 100.3 mph
- 100th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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 · 1130 minutes at five-on-five
- Kaapo Kakko27%
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
- NYR took 46.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 3.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,130 minutes at five-on-five — 79th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Kreider | 53.1% | 23.4% | 39.3% |
| Adam Fox | 53.1% | 47.6% | 49.7% |
| Ryan Lindgren | 53.2% | 47.9% | 46.6% |
53.1% together, 23.4% for him apart and 39.3% for Kreider apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
312 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 32 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 30% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 26% from beyond forty.