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

Nate Schmidt

Undrafted, a Stanley Cup at 33, and a summer signing after the best playoff run of his life.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2013-14	WSH	29	2	4	6	+4	6	0	0	0	41	4.9	18:42
2014-15	WSH	39	1	3	4	-2	10	0	0	0	40	2.5	13:53
2015-16	WSH	72	2	14	16	+12	16	0	0	1	80	2.5	18:04
2016-17	WSH	60	3	14	17	+22	16	0	0	0	60	5.0	15:29
2017-18	VGK	76	5	31	36	+19	16	1	0	1	103	4.9	22:14
2018-19	VGK	61	9	21	30	+22	8	1	0	1	112	8.0	21:57
2019-20	VGK	59	7	24	31	+11	12	1	0	0	112	6.3	21:41
2020-21	VAN	54	5	10	15	-7	4	0	0	1	76	6.6	20:06
2021-22	WPG	77	4	28	32	-4	10	1	0	1	117	3.4	20:13
2022-23	WPG	71	7	12	19	+15	8	3	0	0	101	6.9	18:28
2023-24	WPG	63	2	12	14	+10	16	1	0	1	75	2.7	16:49
2024-25	FLA	80	5	14	19	+4	30	0	0	0	70	7.1	16:32
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	741	52	187	239	+106	152	8	0	6	987	5.3	18:50

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

5 goals and 14 assists in 80 games for Florida — 19 points at 16:32 a night, plus-4, with 30 penalty minutes.

He was bought out by Winnipeg in the summer of 2024, signed a one-year contract in Florida for close to the minimum, played all 80 games on the third pair, and won a Stanley Cup.

The Finesse Game

70 attempts and 5 goals in 80 games. There is not much shot: 52 goals in 741 career games.

14 assists. The skating is the whole of it and it is high-end — he escapes a forecheck by turning away from it, he carries the puck through the neutral zone, and he has been doing that at NHL level for twelve seasons.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 197 and he is not a physical defenceman. He does not clear a crease and he does not finish checks.

30 penalty minutes in 80 games is a moderate rate. He defends with his feet and his stick, and on a third pairing behind a good structure it works.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, and he went to Minnesota and reached the NHL at 22 — 741 games and 239 points across five organisations, with a career plus-106.

He is 34 and Utah signed him in the summer after the Cup. On a blue line whose regulars are 27, 28 and 27, he is the veteran and he is not blocking anybody.

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.

durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
57.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 52.9% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.6, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“**Undrafted**, and he went to Minnesota and reached the NHL at 22 — **741 games and 239 points** across five organisations, with a career plus-106.”
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“**The skating is the whole of it and it is high-end** — he escapes a forecheck by turning away from it, he carries the puck through the neutral zone, and he has been doing that at NHL level for twelve seasons.”
clears-the-creasehe lacks it· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He does not clear a crease and he does not finish checks.”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“He does not clear a crease and he does not finish checks.”
defends-with-reacha strength· takes the puck before the contact happens
“He defends with his feet and his stick, and on a third pairing behind a good structure it works.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,099 minutes

Expected goals: 57.5%; 97th pct
Shot attempts: 56.7%; 95th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 40 for, 34 against. Expected: 44.5 and 33.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

49th

Numbers

97th

The numbers rank him 48 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 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 · 80 games

Top speed: 22.2 mph; 72nd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.72 a game
Distance: 2.41 miles a game
Hardest shot: 93.4 mph; 70th 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 with FLA · 1099 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: FLA took 54.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.5% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third pair, 1,099 minutes at five-on-five — 75th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Uvis Balinskis	53.6%	60.3%	55.4%
Evan Rodrigues	55.4%	58.5%	51.7%
Sam Bennett	54.9%	58.5%	51.5%

53.6% together, 60.3% for him apart and 55.4% for Balinskis apart. He was better away from Balinskis, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Balinskis.

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

119 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 79% from beyond forty.