This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nicolas Hague
Nashville Predators Defense
Six foot six and 245 pounds — the largest man in this edition — acquired from Vegas for Colton Sissons and Jeremy Lauzon.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | VGK | 38 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 0 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 54 | 1.8 | 16:05 |
| 2020-21 | VGK | 52 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +14 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 6.4 | 16:00 |
| 2021-22 | VGK | 52 | 4 | 10 | 14 | +6 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 3.5 | 18:40 |
| 2022-23 | VGK | 81 | 3 | 14 | 17 | +7 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 103 | 2.9 | 18:05 |
| 2023-24 | VGK | 73 | 2 | 10 | 12 | -5 | 43 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 105 | 1.9 | 18:33 |
| 2024-25 | VGK | 68 | 5 | 7 | 12 | -2 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 74 | 6.8 | 17:00 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 364 | 20 | 63 | 83 | +20 | 235 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 530 | 3.8 | 17:33 |
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
68 games with Vegas, 5 goals and 7 assists for 12 points at 17:00 a night, on 74 shots at 6.76 per cent. 40 penalty minutes. Minus-2. He was traded to Nashville in June for Colton Sissons and Jeremy Lauzon.
Six seasons in Vegas, most of them on the third pair of a very good club, with a Stanley Cup in 2023. Seventeen minutes a night and twelve points is the ceiling as it has been used so far, which is not the same thing as the ceiling.
The Finesse Game
Limited, and honest about it. 6.76 per cent on 74 attempts from the point, a first pass that is safe rather than quick, and no meaningful carrying game. He does not run a breakout and has never been asked to.
The skating is the long-standing question. For 6-6 he moves adequately in a straight line, and he is beaten by a change of direction in a way that a top-four assignment will expose more often than a third pair did.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 245 pounds, the largest player on any roster in this edition. The reach ends plays that a normal defenceman has to chase, the crease is genuinely his, and a forward who wants the net front has to be moved through rather than around him.
40 penalty minutes is a modest number for that size, and it reflects a man who does not have to reach for anything.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick, a Stanley Cup in 2023, and six years of being the fifth-best defenceman on a club that had six good ones.
Nashville is going to play him twenty minutes a night. Nobody knows what that looks like, including Vegas — which is why he was available for two bottom-six players.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,086 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.8%
- 30th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.6%
- 30th 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: 44 for, 43 against. Expected: 40.7 and 44.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 26 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 59 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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 with VGK · 1086 minutes at five-on-five
- Zach Whitecloud37%
- Alex Pietrangelooff the roster30%
- Kaedan Korczak16%
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
- VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.8% — 5.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,086 minutes at five-on-five — 73rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zach Whitecloud | 50.6% | 46.0% | 55.3% |
| Alex Pietrangelo | 48.7% | 47.4% | 55.1% |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 48.0% | 47.7% | 60.7% |
50.6% together, 46.0% for him apart and 55.3% for Whitecloud apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Whitecloud 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
101 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.