Nikita Nesterenko
Anaheim Ducks Center
Eight assists in twenty-nine games from a sixth-round pick who keeps almost sticking.
| Season | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 29 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 31 | 3.2 | 12:15 |
| Career | 61 | 7 | 10 | 17 | -9 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 81 | 8.6 | 11:44 |
Last Season
One goal and eight assists in 29 games, minus-two, at 12:15 a night. Sixty-one career games spread across four seasons, which is the shape of a career that has not started.
The Finesse Game
The assists are the interesting part. Eight of them in 29 games is a real rate for a fourth-liner, and it comes from a player who looks for the pass first — 31 shots and one goal says he looks for it too often.
Six foot two with decent hands in traffic. The median attempt from 23 feet suggests he gets to reasonable ice; he simply does not shoot from there.
The Physical Game
Two hundred and three pounds and not much use of it. Eight penalty minutes in 29 games. He is neither a disruptive forechecker nor a wall player, which narrows what a coach can do with him.
The Intangibles
The on-ice rate was 47.2 per cent of the expected goals, 28th percentile, in 326 minutes — below the line but not disastrously, and the sample is thin enough that it should not be read as a verdict.
He is 25 and a hundred and seventy-second overall pick, and the honest position is that this is the last of the patience. The passing is real. Everything else needs to catch up this season.