Photo by Lisa Gansky from New York, NY, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Nicolas Deslauriers
Carolina Hurricanes Left Wing #44
708 games, 53 goals, and a job that barely exists any more.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | BUF | 17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -10 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 3.3 | 13:09 |
| 2014-15 | BUF | 82 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -24 | 71 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 76 | 6.6 | 11:52 |
| 2015-16 | BUF | 70 | 6 | 6 | 12 | -14 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 72 | 8.3 | 10:20 |
| 2016-17 | BUF | 42 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -6 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 0.0 | 7:25 |
| 2017-18 | MTL | 58 | 10 | 4 | 14 | +7 | 55 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 77 | 13.0 | 11:36 |
| 2018-19 | MTL | 48 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -12 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 48 | 4.2 | 10:02 |
| 2019-20 | ANA | 59 | 7 | 6 | 13 | -1 | 92 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 10.9 | 9:47 |
| 2020-21 | ANA | 49 | 5 | 5 | 10 | -7 | 53 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 65 | 7.7 | 11:19 |
| 2021-22 | ANA/MIN | 81 | 8 | 5 | 13 | -11 | 113 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 90 | 8.9 | 11:22 |
| 2022-23 | PHI | 80 | 6 | 6 | 12 | -11 | 136 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 70 | 8.6 | 10:06 |
| 2023-24 | PHI | 60 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -7 | 89 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 49 | 2.0 | 8:09 |
| 2024-25 | PHI | 31 | 2 | 1 | 3 | -9 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 8.0 | 7:38 |
| 2025-26 | PHI/CAR | 31 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -3 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0.0 | 8:33 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 708 | 53 | 53 | 106 | -108 | 799 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 710 | 7.5 | 10:13 |
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
No goals and 2 assists in 31 games, minus-3, at 8:33 a night with 38 penalty minutes. His 5-on-5 work was done in Philadelphia.
The Finesse Game
None, and none is claimed. 18 shots on goal in 31 games. 53 goals in 708 career games, which is a goal every 13 games across 13 seasons.
The Physical Game
6-1, 218, and the last of a line. He fights, he hits everything, and he has spent his whole career being the man a club dresses when it expects trouble.
38 penalty minutes in 31 games at 8 and a half minutes a night is a very high rate for the ice he gets.
The Intangibles
This page is the argument the rest of this book keeps making, seen from the other end. Klapka in Calgary takes 112 minutes and scores 6. Greer in Anaheim takes 113 and scores 17. Deslauriers took 38 in a third of a season and scored none, and he is the one who most resembles the player this job used to require.
He is 35. He played 31 games. 264 5-on-5 minutes is not enough to price him and the club is not dressing him for what happens at 5-on-5.
Carolina finished 2nd on the penalty kill and 2nd in expected goals. Whether a roster like that has a place for this any more is a real question, and the answer will be given in April rather than October.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 264 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.3%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.4%
- 41st 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: 4 for, 6 against. Expected: 7.8 and 6.8.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 77 points above where the report does. 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 — 60 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 · 31 games
- Top speed
- 21.1 mph
- 10th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.19 a game
- Distance
- 1.40 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.1 mph
- 77th 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 83.6
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 14 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
2
points in his last 10 games — 0 goals, 2 assists, 14 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 with PHI · 195 minutes at five-on-five
- Rodrigo Abolsoff the roster62%
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
- CAR took 55.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.3% — 2.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 264 minutes at five-on-five — 4th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garnet Hathaway | 51.0% | 55.7% | 46.4% |
| Rodrigo Abols | 43.8% | 61.0% | 41.3% |
| Jamie Drysdale | 38.6% | 58.3% | 51.4% |
51.0% together, 55.7% for him apart and 46.4% for Hathaway apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Hathaway behind.
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
27 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 0 of them goals. 30% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 37% from beyond forty.