This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nikita Zadorov
Calgary Flames Defense
Six-foot-seven, 255 pounds, 576 career penalty minutes, and fourteen goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | BUF | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 25.0 | 17:10 |
| 2014-15 | BUF | 60 | 3 | 12 | 15 | -10 | 51 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 52 | 5.8 | 17:42 |
| 2015-16 | COL | 22 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -5 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0.0 | 16:56 |
| 2016-17 | COL | 56 | 0 | 10 | 10 | -20 | 73 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 0.0 | 19:02 |
| 2017-18 | COL | 77 | 7 | 13 | 20 | +4 | 103 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 94 | 7.4 | 19:28 |
| 2018-19 | COL | 70 | 7 | 7 | 14 | +19 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 7.0 | 17:12 |
| 2019-20 | COL | 64 | 4 | 9 | 13 | +6 | 65 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 65 | 6.2 | 17:46 |
| 2020-21 | CHI | 55 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +1 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 1.9 | 19:12 |
| 2021-22 | CGY | 74 | 4 | 18 | 22 | +11 | 77 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 106 | 3.8 | 16:55 |
| 2022-23 | CGY | 82 | 14 | 7 | 21 | +10 | 80 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 130 | 10.8 | 18:41 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 567 | 41 | 85 | 126 | +12 | 576 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 682 | 6.0 | 18:10 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
14 goals and 7 assists in 82 games — 21 points at 18:41 a night, plus-10, on 130 shots, converting at 10.77 per cent, and 80 penalty minutes.
Fourteen goals from a defensive defenceman is a genuine outlier — his previous career high was five, and 41 goals in 567 games is the rate. 54.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,320 minutes, the 83rd percentile; his ice went 63-55 against an expectation of 59.73-50.17.
The Finesse Game
130 attempts at a median of 49 feet, 64 per cent from beyond 40 and only 8 per cent from inside 20, converting at 10.77 per cent off a shot measured at 98.3 mph — the 93rd percentile.
This is the one case in the book where the hard point shot did score, and 10.77 per cent from 49 feet is a rate no defenceman sustains — Weegar shot 2.5 per cent from the same distance with almost the same velocity. The honest expectation is five or six goals, not fourteen.
The Physical Game
6-7 and 255 pounds, one of the largest men in the league, and 576 penalty minutes in 567 games. He hits enormously hard, he fights, and he clears the front of his net by lifting people out of it.
The skating is respectable for the size at 22.4 mph, the 56th percentile. He is beaten by quick forwards who change direction and he cannot recover, which is why the minutes stay at eighteen rather than twenty-two.
The Intangibles
Sixteenth overall in 2013 to Buffalo, ten seasons and five clubs, and a player whose value has always been debated between people who watch him and people who read his shot-attempt numbers.
He is 28, in the last year of his deal. On a club with three better defencemen also heading for free agency, he is the one Calgary can most easily replace and the one a contender will most obviously want in April.
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
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He hits enormously hard, he fights, and he clears the front of his net by lifting people out of it.”
“He hits enormously hard, he fights, and he clears the front of his net by lifting people out of it.”
“He hits enormously hard, he fights, and he clears the front of his net by lifting people out of it.”
“He is beaten by quick forwards who change direction and he cannot recover”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,320 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.3%
- 83rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 60%
- 97th 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: 63 for, 55 against. Expected: 59.7 and 50.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 3 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 99 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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
2022-23 · 1320 minutes at five-on-five
- Michael Stoneoff the roster29%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.3% — 0.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,320 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacKenzie Weegar | 58.0% | 52.5% | 58.6% |
| Nazem Kadri | 51.5% | 55.8% | 55.2% |
| Michael Stone | 50.1% | 56.2% | 52.5% |
58.0% together, 52.5% for him apart and 58.6% for Weegar apart. He was worse away from Weegar, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Weegar did.
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
168 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 64% from beyond forty.