Nikita Nesterenko
Anaheim Ducks Center
8 assists in 29 games from a sixth-round pick who keeps almost sticking.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | ANA | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 4.3 | 13:17 |
| 2023-24 | ANA | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 14.3 | 11:31 |
| 2024-25 | ANA | 20 | 4 | 2 | 6 | -4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 20.0 | 10:19 |
| 2025-26 | ANA | 29 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 31 | 3.2 | 12:15 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 61 | 7 | 10 | 17 | -9 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 81 | 8.6 | 11:44 |
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
1 goal and 8 assists in 29 games, minus-2, at 12:15 a night. 61 career games spread across 4 seasons, which is the shape of a career that has not started.
The Finesse Game
The assists are the interesting part. 8 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 1 goal says he looks for it too often.
6-2 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
203 pounds and not much use of it. 8 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 48.8 per cent of the expected goals, 44th 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 172nd 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.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 326 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.8%
- 45th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49%
- 47th 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: 10 for, 12 against. Expected: 12.1 and 12.6.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 44 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 — 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 29 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 62nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.69 a game
- Distance
- 2.01 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 84.6 mph
- 48th 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 18 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
2
points in his last 10 games — 0 goals, 2 assists, 16 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 326 minutes at five-on-five
- Alex Killorn30%
- Troy Terry26%
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
- ANA took 50.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.8% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 326 minutes at five-on-five — 7th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olen Zellweger | 45.2% | 50.9% | 51.7% |
| Ryan Poehling | 47.9% | 49.4% | 48.0% |
| Jacob Trouba | 49.2% | 48.6% | 49.8% |
45.2% together, 50.9% for him apart and 51.7% for Zellweger apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
41 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.