This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Nick Foligno

Two goals on 99 shots at 2.0 per cent — the 1st percentile — and thirteen goals of scoring that his ice created and never produced.

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

2007-08	OTT	45	6	3	9	0	20	0	0	0	44	13.6	9:10
2008-09	OTT	81	17	15	32	-10	59	7	0	2	145	11.7	13:41
2009-10	OTT	61	9	17	26	+6	53	2	0	2	83	10.8	14:19
2010-11	OTT	82	14	20	34	-19	43	5	0	3	149	9.4	15:35
2011-12	OTT	82	15	32	47	+2	124	1	0	3	153	9.8	14:39
2012-13	CBJ	45	6	13	19	+6	28	1	0	2	69	8.7	16:31
2013-14	CBJ	70	18	21	39	+5	96	3	0	5	111	16.2	16:04
2014-15	CBJ	79	31	42	73	+16	50	11	0	3	182	17.0	18:50
2015-16	CBJ	72	12	25	37	-14	53	0	0	2	149	8.1	16:54
2016-17	CBJ	79	26	25	51	-4	55	11	0	5	185	14.1	18:26
2017-18	CBJ	72	15	18	33	+1	50	2	0	1	137	10.9	18:21
2018-19	CBJ	73	17	18	35	+12	44	2	0	2	141	12.1	17:42
2019-20	CBJ	67	10	21	31	-3	62	2	0	1	131	7.6	18:40
2020-21	CBJ/TOR	49	7	13	20	+2	32	1	0	0	81	8.6	17:46
2021-22	BOS	64	2	11	13	-13	61	0	0	0	99	2.0	12:28
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1021	205	294	499	-13	830	48	0	31	1859	11.0	16:06

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

2 goals and 11 assists in 64 games — 13 points at 12:28 a night, minus-13, on 99 shots and 61 penalty minutes.

Two goals on 99 attempts is 2.0 per cent — the 1st percentile among the league’s forwards. He had scored 205 in 1,021 games before this season.

55.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 689 minutes, the 87th percentile. And his ice went 14-21 against an expectation of 27.28-22.15 — thirteen goals of scoring that the chances said should have arrived and did not, the largest such gap on this roster by a distance.

Fourteen goals for in 689 minutes on the club with the second-best chance share in hockey. Something has to explain that and the shooting percentage is most of it.

The Finesse Game

99 attempts at a median of 34 feet — the 98th percentile for distance — with 39 per cent from inside the slot, the 12th percentile. He is shooting from further out than almost any forward in the league and converting at a rate nobody has seen.

1.03 even-strength points per 60 is the 8th percentile among forwards. Whether the hands have gone or the season was an aberration is the whole question, and 64 games is enough to worry about the first answer.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 210, and this half is unambiguous. 12.34 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among forwards and 830 penalty minutes across a career is the record behind it. He forechecks, he finishes, and he is in every scrum.

1.73 penalties taken per 60 is the 95th percentile and minus-0.75 on drawn against taken is the 2nd. He costs his club a power play most nights.

Top speed 21.0 mph is the 1st percentile among the league’s forwards with 1.6 bursts above 20 mph per 60 at the 7th. At thirty-four, he is among the slowest forwards in hockey, and a slow forechecker arrives after the puck has gone.

The Intangibles

Twenty-eighth overall in 2006 by Ottawa, 1,021 games, 499 points, and a career of being the man other players like playing with. A captain in Columbus for six seasons and 1,021 games of professional standing.

He is 34. Boston signed him for two years to be a fourth-line conscience and got 13 points and the worst shooting season of any forward in this book. The hits are still there. Nothing else is, and there is no version of thirty-five where the feet come back.

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
34.4% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“12.34 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among forwards”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“A captain in Columbus for six seasons and 1,021 games of professional standing”
retaliateshe lacks it· answers the cross-check, and takes the second penalty
“1.73 penalties taken per 60 is the 95th percentile and minus-0.75 on drawn against taken is the 2nd”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 689 minutes

Expected goals: 55.2%; 87th pct
Shot attempts: 53.7%; 82nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 14 for, 21 against. Expected: 27.3 and 22.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

29th

Numbers

87th

The numbers rank him 58 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 56 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, 2021-22 · 64 games

Top speed: 21.0 mph; 13th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.33 a game
Distance: 1.94 miles a game
Hardest shot: 90.2 mph; 68th 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

2021-22 · 689 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, 2021-22

The club: BOS took 56.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.2% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
The role: Fourth line, 689 minutes at five-on-five — 31st percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Tomas Nosek	56.0%	54.7%	49.6%
Curtis Lazar	56.4%	54.6%	50.1%
Derek Forbort	55.4%	55.1%	49.1%

56.0% together, 54.7% for him apart and 49.6% for Nosek apart. Nosek was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Nosek than for 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

122 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 31% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 34% from beyond forty.