This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nikita Zadorov
Boston Bruins Defense
Six foot seven, 255 pounds, seven hundred and one penalty minutes — and the club had nobody like him.
| 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 | CGY/VAN | 75 | 6 | 14 | 20 | 0 | 125 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 90 | 6.7 | 17:26 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 642 | 47 | 99 | 146 | +12 | 701 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 772 | 6.1 | 18:05 |
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
6 goals and 14 assists in 75 games for Calgary and Vancouver — 20 points at 17:26 a night, even, on 90 shots with 125 penalty minutes.
49.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,176 minutes, the 50th percentile. His ice went 60-54 against an expectation of 46.10-46.63 — fourteen goals scored above expectation and seven conceded above it, on a third pair that spent the year in the offensive end more than the chances say it should have.
The Finesse Game
90 attempts at a median of 54 feet, with 76 per cent from beyond 40 and 3 per cent from inside 20, converting at 6.67 per cent. Six goals from the point is a good return and the shot is genuinely heavy.
14 assists. He does not carry the puck out under pressure and the first pass is a short one — 146 points in 642 games is the whole of the offensive record and none of it is why he is employed.
The Physical Game
6-7 and 255 with 701 penalty minutes in 642 games — the heaviest defenceman in this edition.
He clears the front of his own net by moving grown men out of it and he finishes every check. A forward who takes the puck into the corner against him is making a decision about the rest of the night.
He takes liberties and he answers for them. 125 penalty minutes on a club that finished third in shorthanded time is the arithmetic the coaching staff has to accept, and it accepted it deliberately.
The Intangibles
Sixteenth overall in 2013 by Buffalo, and 642 games across five clubs at 29, none of them for more than three seasons.
He was signed here because the club had nobody like him — a top-six that is large and skilled and a blue line that defended with position, in a division that plays in the corners. That is a coherent piece of roster-building and it is also 125 penalty minutes.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,176 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.7%
- 51st pct
- Shot attempts
- 51%
- 64th 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: 60 for, 54 against. Expected: 46.1 and 46.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 8 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 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 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
2023-24 with VAN · 834 minutes at five-on-five
- Tyler Myers28%
- Noah Juulsen28%
- Ian Colenow UTA24%
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
- VAN took 52.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.7% — 2.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,176 minutes at five-on-five — 81st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyler Myers | 46.8% | 50.5% | 54.6% |
| Noah Juulsen | 46.6% | 50.5% | 49.4% |
| Ilya Mikheyev | 43.7% | 51.2% | 56.9% |
46.8% together, 50.5% for him apart and 54.6% for Myers 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
147 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 57 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.