This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Mika Zibanejad

62 points and minus-22, and his five-on-five ice was 38-47 against him — the two numbers say the same thing twice.

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	NYR	82	39	52	91	+25	20	20	1	5	251	15.5	19:58
2023-24	NYR	81	26	46	72	+15	30	12	2	3	221	11.8	19:45
2024-25	NYR	82	20	42	62	-22	22	7	0	0	183	10.9	18:46
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	930	314	426	740	+22	257	120	13	42	2409	13.0	18:23

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

20 goals and 42 assists in all 82 games — 62 points, minus-22, at 18:46 a night on 183 shots.

48.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 51st percentile, across 1,011 minutes, with the on-ice goals 38-47 in his favour against an even expectation. A man who is plus-7 at five-on-five and minus-22 overall lost the difference somewhere else, and the club’s penalty kill and empty nets are where that money went.

The Finesse Game

The shot is the career. The one-timer from the left circle is still among the more dangerous releases in the league and 7 of his 20 goals came on the power play, which is where it is now most reliably used.

At even strength it has thinned. 20 goals on 183 shots at a median of 32 feet, with 29 per cent of attempts from inside 20, is a distance shooter who converted at an ordinary rate — two seasons ago he scored 39. The passing has held up better than the scoring: 42 assists is the second-highest total of his career.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 208, and he is heavier than he plays. He wins a draw, he protects the puck below the goal line, and he will take contact to make a play.

What he does not do is initiate. 22 penalty minutes in 82 games is a very quiet number for a second-line centre taking defensive-zone starts, and there is no edge here to speak of — he takes the punishment and does not answer it.

The Intangibles

Fourteen seasons, 930 games, 740 points, and eight of those years here.

He is 32 with a long contract and the number that follows him is the minus-22, which is the least informative figure on the page. The real question is the even-strength shot: at 39 goals he was a first-line centre and at 20 he is an expensive second one, and the club spent the deadline acquiring somebody to play ahead of him.

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
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
30.8% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
faceoffsa strength· takes the draw that starts it
“He wins a draw, he protects the puck below the goal line, and he will take contact to make a play.”
retaliateshe lacks it· answers the cross-check, and takes the second penalty
“22 penalty minutes in 82 games is a very quiet number for a second-line centre taking defensive-zone starts, and there is no edge here to speak of — he takes the punishment and does not answer it.”
nastyhe lacks it· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“there is no edge here to speak of — he takes the punishment and does not answer it.”
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“He wins a draw, he protects the puck below the goal line, and he will take contact to make a play.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,011 minutes

Expected goals: 48.6%; 40th pct
Shot attempts: 48.5%; 38th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 47 against. Expected: 40.0 and 42.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

49th

Numbers

40th

The two rank him within 9 points of one another. 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.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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, 2024-25 · 82 games

Top speed: 22.5 mph; 63rd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.80 a game
Distance: 3.01 miles a game
Hardest shot: 99.3 mph; 100th pct

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

2024-25 · 1011 minutes at five-on-five

Reilly Smithnow VGK44%
Chris Kreidernow ANA38%
Will Cuylle33%

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: NYR took 47.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.6% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 1,011 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Reilly Smith	51.6%	45.6%	52.2%
K'Andre Miller	49.8%	47.6%	48.1%
Chris Kreider	47.0%	49.6%	43.5%

51.6% together, 45.6% for him apart and 52.2% for Smith apart. He was worse away from Smith, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Smith did.

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

295 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 29% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 31% from beyond forty.