This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nic Dowd
Washington Capitals Center
A seventh-round pick, 35 years old, and the best fourth-line results on a club that finished first in the East.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | LAK | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 10:35 |
| 2016-17 | LAK | 70 | 6 | 16 | 22 | -15 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 78 | 7.7 | 12:27 |
| 2017-18 | LAK/VAN | 56 | 3 | 1 | 4 | -10 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 51 | 5.9 | 10:32 |
| 2018-19 | WSH | 64 | 8 | 14 | 22 | +10 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 47 | 17.0 | 10:18 |
| 2019-20 | WSH | 56 | 7 | 8 | 15 | +11 | 28 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 52 | 13.5 | 10:50 |
| 2020-21 | WSH | 56 | 11 | 4 | 15 | +4 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 68 | 16.2 | 14:22 |
| 2021-22 | WSH | 64 | 10 | 14 | 24 | +10 | 44 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 90 | 11.1 | 14:16 |
| 2022-23 | WSH | 65 | 13 | 12 | 25 | +6 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 62 | 21.0 | 13:21 |
| 2023-24 | WSH | 64 | 12 | 10 | 22 | -2 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 61 | 19.7 | 15:12 |
| 2024-25 | WSH | 82 | 14 | 13 | 27 | +7 | 56 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 86 | 16.3 | 15:11 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 582 | 84 | 92 | 176 | +22 | 307 | 2 | 6 | 18 | 598 | 14.1 | 13:02 |
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
14 goals and 13 assists in 82 games — 27 points at 15:11 a night, plus-7, with 2 shorthanded goals and 3 game-winners on 86 shots, converting at 16.3 per cent, and 56 penalty minutes.
50.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 66th percentile. His ice went 34-35 against an expectation of 36.67-35.68, which is a fourth line that came out a long way ahead of its chances at both ends.
The Finesse Game
86 attempts at a median of 22 feet with 46 per cent from inside 20 and 12 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 16.3 per cent. Fourteen goals from a checking centre at fifteen minutes a night is a very good return.
13 assists. 176 points in 582 career games is the offensive record and it has never been the job. He wins the draw that begins the shift and he is the man sent out to protect a lead in the last minute.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 195 and he plays a hard, honest game. He forechecks first, he blocks shots, and he finishes checks.
56 penalty minutes in 82 games is a moderate rate. He is not an agitator; a share of it is the foul that a checking centre takes because the alternative is a scoring chance.
The Intangibles
A seventh-round pick in 2009 — 198th overall — out of St. Cloud State, and 582 games across three organisations, with a Stanley Cup here in 2018.
He is 35 and from Huntsville, Alabama, which makes him one of a very small number of NHL players from the American South. He has been this club’s fourth-line centre for seven seasons.
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
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
14% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 0th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“**He wins the draw that begins the shift** and he is the man sent out to protect a lead in the last minute.”
“**He wins the draw that begins the shift** and he is the man sent out to protect a lead in the last minute.”
“14 goals and 13 assists in 82 games — 27 points at 15:11 a night, plus-7, with **2 shorthanded goals** and 3 game-winners on 86 shots, converting at 16.3 per cent, and 56 penalty minutes.”
“He forechecks first, he blocks shots, and he finishes checks.”
“He forechecks first, he blocks shots, and he finishes checks.”
“He is not an agitator; a share of it is the foul that a checking centre takes because the alternative is a scoring chance.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 972 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.7%
- 60th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.2%
- 45th 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: 34 for, 35 against. Expected: 36.7 and 35.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 16 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 — 77 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
- 21.8 mph
- 31st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.12 a game
- Distance
- 2.45 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 84.6 mph
- 41st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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 · 972 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
- WSH took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.7% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 972 minutes at five-on-five — 57th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Duhaime | 49.5% | 54.4% | 47.3% |
| Taylor Raddysh | 48.3% | 52.5% | 54.3% |
| Martin Fehérváry | 56.0% | 47.8% | 50.2% |
49.5% together, 54.4% for him apart and 47.3% for Duhaime apart. He was better away from Duhaime, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Duhaime.
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
125 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.