This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Nikita Kucherov

121 points and 84 assists at 31, a second consecutive Art Ross Trophy, and nine game-winning goals.

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	TBL	78	37	84	121	+22	45	8	0	9	265	14.0	21:11
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	803	357	637	994	+157	386	96	0	57	2481	14.4	18:60

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

37 goals and 84 assists in 78 games — 121 points, the most in the league, and a second consecutive Art Ross Trophy — at 21:11 a night, plus-22, with 8 power-play goals and 9 game-winning goals on 265 shots.

54.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 79th percentile. His ice went 80-47 against an expectation of 61.79-51.24 — thirteen goals of scoring missing and ten fewer conceded, which on a club that scored 294 goals says most of his production came a man up and on the rush.

The Finesse Game

The passing is the best in hockey and it is not close. He throws pucks into space a half-second before a teammate arrives, he holds it until a defenceman is committed and then puts it behind him, and 84 assists is the second time in three seasons he has cleared eighty.

265 attempts at a median of 30 feet with 27 per cent from inside 20, converting at 14.0 per cent. The shot is genuinely good and it is the fourth thing about him; he is a passer who scores 37 goals because defences cannot commit to stopping the pass.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 173 pounds and among the lightest forwards in the league. He does not forecheck, he does not win a puck on the wall, and none of the value has ever been in that half of the game.

45 penalty minutes in 78 games is a moderate rate and a good share of it is the stick foul or the slash of a man who has lost possession. He complains, he is theatrical about contact, and he draws penalties as a result.

The Intangibles

A second-round pick in 2011 — 58th overall — and 803 games, 994 points, two Stanley Cups, a Hart Trophy and three Art Ross Trophies.

He is 32 and has had 100 or more points in four of the last five seasons. Whatever the club’s structural numbers say, it employs the most productive player in hockey.

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.

durable· was available
78 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
54.7% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 48.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.1, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:48 a game at five-on-five, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“**The passing is the best in hockey and it is not close.** He throws pucks into space a half-second before a teammate arrives, he holds it until a defenceman is committed and then puts it behind him, and 84 assists is the second time in three seasons he has cleared eighty.”
forechecks-aggressivelyhe lacks it· first man in, and on the puck
“He does not forecheck, he does not win a puck on the wall, and none of the value has ever been in that half of the game.”
wins-the-wallhe lacks it· the corners and below the goal line
“He does not forecheck, he does not win a puck on the wall, and none of the value has ever been in that half of the game.”
fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“45 penalty minutes in 78 games is a moderate rate and a good share of it is the stick foul or the slash of a man who has lost possession.”
agitatora strength· gets under the skin; draws the retaliation
“He complains, he is theatrical about contact, and he draws penalties as a result.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,233 minutes

Expected goals: 54.7%; 89th pct
Shot attempts: 52.2%; 75th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 80 for, 47 against. Expected: 61.8 and 51.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

96th

Numbers

89th

The two rank him within 7 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 637 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, 2024-25 · 78 games

Top speed: 22.8 mph; 78th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.31 a game
Distance: 3.40 miles a game
Hardest shot: 96.3 mph; 98th 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

2024-25 · 1233 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, 2024-25

The club: TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.7% — 3.9 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,233 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Brayden Point	52.8%	58.4%	47.0%
Jake Guentzel	54.0%	55.8%	51.3%
Victor Hedman	55.7%	53.8%	50.4%

52.8% together, 58.4% for him apart and 47.0% for Point apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Point 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

369 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 37 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 23% from beyond forty.