This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Nikita Kucherov

A hundred assists and 144 points, both the most of anybody in this edition.

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

2013-14	TBL	52	9	9	18	+3	14	3	0	3	102	8.8	13:07
2014-15	TBL	82	29	36	65	+38	37	2	0	2	191	15.2	14:57
2015-16	TBL	77	30	36	66	+9	30	9	0	4	209	14.3	18:13
2016-17	TBL	74	40	45	85	+13	38	17	0	7	246	16.3	19:26
2017-18	TBL	80	39	61	100	+15	42	8	0	7	279	14.0	19:49
2018-19	TBL	82	41	87	128	+24	62	15	0	8	246	16.7	19:58
2019-20	TBL	68	33	52	85	+26	38	4	0	6	210	15.7	18:52
2021-22	TBL	47	25	44	69	+1	22	9	0	1	156	16.0	19:59
2022-23	TBL	82	30	83	113	-2	36	8	0	4	271	11.1	20:08
2023-24	TBL	81	44	100	144	+8	22	13	0	6	306	14.4	21:40
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	725	320	553	873	+135	341	88	0	48	2216	14.4	18:45

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

81 games, 44 goals and 100 assists for 144 points, 13 on the power play, 22 penalty minutes, 21:40 a night and plus-8, with 6 game-winners. He took 54.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,333 minutes, the 85th percentile, and his ice went 81-76 against an expectation of 69.22-57.77.

Twelve goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and eighteen more conceded than they called for. A hundred assists is tied for the most in this edition and 144 points is the highest total in it.

The Finesse Game

447 attempts at a median of 33 feet with 23 per cent of them from inside twenty and 31 per cent from beyond forty, 297 of those on goal, converted at 14.4 per cent against a career 14.44 across 2,216 shots.

553 career assists in 725 games. He plays the game from the right half-wall and from below the goal line and sees the seam a beat before anybody else on the ice does; the shot goes only when the pass is covered, which is why he shoots from thirty-three feet and still converts at fourteen per cent.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 173 and took 22 penalty minutes.

341 career penalty minutes in 725 games. He is one of the lightest forwards in this edition and there is no contact in his game at all; everything depends on holding the puck away from a stick rather than away from a body.

The Intangibles

Fifty-eighth overall in 2011 by Tampa Bay, ten seasons, one organisation, and 873 points in 725 games.

A career plus-135 — the largest positive figure on this roster — and 88 career power-play goals. He has played every one of his 725 NHL games for the same club, and a hundred assists is a career high by thirteen.

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
31.1% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
11 of 139 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 7.9%, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
54.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 47.9% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.6, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
16:27 a game at five-on-five, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
63% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“He plays the game from the right half-wall and from below the goal line and sees the seam a beat before anybody else on the ice does; the shot goes only when the pass is covered, which is why he shoots from thirty-three feet and still converts at fourteen per cent.”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“He is one of the lightest forwards in this edition and there is no contact in his game at all; everything depends on holding the puck away from a stick rather than away from a body.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“A career plus-135 — the largest positive figure on this roster — and 88 career power-play goals.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,333 minutes

Expected goals: 54.5%; 85th pct
Shot attempts: 53.8%; 84th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 81 for, 76 against. Expected: 69.2 and 57.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

98th

Numbers

85th

The two rank him within 13 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 83 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, 2023-24 · 81 games

Top speed: 23.2 mph; 93rd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.96 a game
Distance: 3.52 miles a game
Hardest shot: 92.3 mph; 83rd 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

2023-24 · 1333 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, 2023-24

The club: TBL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.5% — 4.0 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,333 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Brayden Point	54.1%	56.4%	41.0%
Victor Hedman	54.5%	54.5%	49.7%
Darren Raddysh	54.0%	54.8%	51.1%

54.1% together, 56.4% for him apart and 41.0% for Point apart. Point was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Point 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

447 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 44 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 23% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 31% from beyond forty.