This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nick Cousins
Florida Panthers Center
The softest registered shot in this chapter, at the 1st percentile, on a ninth season and a sixth organisation.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | PHI | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 8:49 |
| 2015-16 | PHI | 36 | 6 | 5 | 11 | +5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 41 | 14.6 | 10:44 |
| 2016-17 | PHI | 60 | 6 | 10 | 16 | -6 | 31 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 99 | 6.1 | 12:00 |
| 2017-18 | ARI | 71 | 12 | 7 | 19 | -7 | 31 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 119 | 10.1 | 12:52 |
| 2018-19 | ARI | 81 | 7 | 20 | 27 | -8 | 35 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 144 | 4.9 | 13:33 |
| 2019-20 | MTL/VGK | 65 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 0 | 35 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 115 | 8.7 | 13:31 |
| 2020-21 | NSH | 52 | 5 | 13 | 18 | +4 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 60 | 8.3 | 13:22 |
| 2021-22 | NSH | 68 | 9 | 13 | 22 | -8 | 31 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 103 | 8.7 | 12:28 |
| 2022-23 | FLA | 79 | 9 | 18 | 27 | -1 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 102 | 8.8 | 11:02 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 523 | 64 | 101 | 165 | -20 | 248 | 9 | 0 | 8 | 789 | 8.1 | 12:27 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
9 goals and 18 assists in 79 games — 27 points. Minus-1, 11:02 a night, 102 shots at 8.8 per cent, 38 penalty minutes.
50.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 53rd percentile, with his ice at 39-39 against an expectation of 38.08-37.96. Everything about that line is average, and on a fourth line average is the assignment.
Nine seasons, 523 games, 165 points, six organisations.
The Finesse Game
102 shots at a median of 25 feet, 38 per cent from inside twenty and 25 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 25 shots on goal and no goals. Inside forty: 73 shots, 9 goals, 12.33 per cent.
77.4 mph at the 1st percentile — the softest registered shot on the Florida roster and one of the softest in this book. He took three slap shots all season, which is most of the explanation; the measurement is a slap-shot reading and a man who never slaps registers low.
What survives the caveat is that he has never scored more than twelve goals in a season and has 64 in 523 games.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 191, and 38 penalty minutes in 79 games.
Top speed 22.4 mph, the 53rd percentile; bursts 0.6 a game, the 31st; 1.86 miles a game, the 10th percentile.
He is a pest. He finishes checks late, talks through the whistle and has drawn a reputation across six organisations for playing at the edge of what the officials will allow. Some of that is useful and some of it is why the list of organisations is six long.
The Intangibles
Sixty-eighth overall in 2011 to Philadelphia, and then Arizona, Montreal, Vegas, Nashville and Florida.
52.1 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 59th percentile.
He is thirty, on a fourth line, and useful in the exact way a fourth line is meant to be useful. The book records no projection beyond that.
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.
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He is a pest.”
“He finishes checks late, talks through the whistle and has drawn a reputation across six organisations for playing at the edge of what the officials will allow.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 846 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.1%
- 54th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.6%
- 58th 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: 39 for, 39 against. Expected: 38.1 and 38.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 25 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 61 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, 2022-23 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 22.4 mph
- 60th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.62 a game
- Distance
- 1.86 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 77.4 mph
- 13th 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 84.9
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
2022-23 · 846 minutes at five-on-five
- Eric Staaloff the roster46%
- Ryan Lomberg35%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- FLA took 53.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.1% — 3.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 846 minutes at five-on-five — 44th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eric Staal | 49.5% | 50.6% | 48.9% |
| Ryan Lomberg | 49.2% | 50.6% | 52.1% |
| Brandon Montour | 46.7% | 52.5% | 54.0% |
49.5% together, 50.6% for him apart and 48.9% for Staal apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
131 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 38% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.