Neal Pionk

An undrafted defenceman who has played nearly 600 games and 22 minutes a night on merit alone.

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

2017-18	NYR	28	1	13	14	-1	12	0	0	0	54	1.8	22:23
2018-19	NYR	73	6	20	26	-16	35	2	0	1	132	4.5	21:10
2019-20	WPG	71	6	39	45	+10	32	3	0	1	177	3.4	23:23
2020-21	WPG	54	3	29	32	+6	20	1	0	0	100	3.0	21:58
2021-22	WPG	77	3	31	34	+5	46	1	0	1	140	2.1	21:08
2022-23	WPG	82	10	23	33	-12	44	1	0	2	142	7.0	21:56
2023-24	WPG	82	5	28	33	+9	63	1	0	1	146	3.4	20:50
2024-25	WPG	69	10	29	39	+21	44	4	0	2	123	8.1	22:04
2025-26	WPG	51	3	9	12	+1	37	1	0	1	97	3.1	22:43
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	587	47	221	268	+23	333	14	0	9	1111	4.2	21:52

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

3 goals and 12 points in 51 games, plus-1, on 22:43 a night. He missed 30 games, and the production was well down on his career rate — 268 points in 587 games says a defenceman who normally contributes more.

The Finesse Game

He moves the puck well and shoots more than most defencemen in his role. The passing is his best attribute: quick, confident outlets, and a genuine ability to run a power play when asked, which he has done for stretches of his career.

The decision-making is the recurring criticism. He holds pucks a beat too long and attempts plays that create odd-man rushes the other way. In a top-4 role that has always been the trade.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 190, and he plays with more bite than the size suggests — he finishes checks, gets involved after whistles, and takes his share of penalties. He is not going to win a battle against a power forward in front of the net.

The Intangibles

Undrafted out of college, and he has out-earned a great many first-round picks. That takes something.

At 31, the games missed are the concern. A defenceman playing 22 minutes on a team whose depth behind the top pairing is thin needs to be available, and last season he was not.

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

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
90.6% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 99th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 920 minutes

Expected goals: 45.3%; 17th pct
Shot attempts: 48.8%; 44th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 35 for, 31 against. Expected: 33.1 and 40.0.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

67th

Numbers

17th

The report ranks him 50 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 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, 2025-26 · 51 games

Top speed: 21.0 mph; 27th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.27 a game
Distance: 3.18 miles a game
Hardest shot: 90.6 mph; 50th 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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 4 assists, 21 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 920 minutes at five-on-five

Dylan Samberg43%
Logan Stanleyoff the roster23%
Josh Morrissey18%

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, 2025-26

The club: WPG took 47.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.3% — 2.0 below the club he did it on.
The role: Second pair, 920 minutes at five-on-five — 51st percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Dylan Samberg	47.4%	43.8%	51.4%
Mark Scheifele	46.8%	44.4%	50.2%
Kyle Connor	47.6%	44.1%	49.9%

47.4% together, 43.8% for him apart and 51.4% for Samberg apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Samberg and did not follow 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

138 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 50 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 91% from beyond forty.