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

Nikita Zadorov

6-7 and 255 pounds, 145 penalty minutes, and a plus-25 on a team that was outscored by 49.

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	BOS	81	4	18	22	+25	145	0	0	0	105	3.8	20:37
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	723	51	117	168	+37	846	2	0	5	877	5.8	18:22

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

4 goals and 18 assists in 81 games for 22 points, plus-25 on a club with a minus-49 goal differential — a 74-goal swing against the team’s own rate, and the strangest number in this edition.

49.0 per cent at five-on-five, the 45th percentile and the second-best on the blue line, over 1,371 minutes. On-ice goals of 49-49 against an expected 52-54, so the results ran ahead of the chances by 9.

The Finesse Game

Limited and not the point. 105 shots with 75 per cent of them from beyond 40 feet, 4 goals, and a first pass that is safe rather than quick.

He has improved as a puck-mover over his career to the extent that he no longer stalls a breakout, which is genuinely all that is asked. 18 assists is a fair reflection.

The Physical Game

6-7 and 255, one of the largest men in the league, and he plays every inch of it. He clears the crease, he hits hard and constantly, and forwards visibly change their route through the slot when he is on the ice.

145 penalty minutes is the highest total on the club by 39. Some of that is the price of the only genuinely fearsome player on the roster; a lot of it is a penalty kill that then has to work.

The Intangibles

Five organisations, a reputation as a difficult teammate that he has spent the last three years dismantling, and a run to a conference final in Vancouver that made him a name.

At 30 on a long contract, this is what the club has: a genuinely useful defensive defenceman who is the reason opponents do not enjoy playing here, and the third-most penalised player in the league. Both are true and only one of them helps.

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
ordinaryraised, and called ordinary

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
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
clears-the-creasea strength· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He clears the crease, he hits hard and constantly, and forwards visibly change their route through the slot when he is on the ice.”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“he hits hard and constantly”
nastya strength· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“forwards visibly change their route through the slot when he is on the ice”
transitionpresent and ordinary· carries it out; gains the line under control
“He has improved as a puck-mover over his career to the extent that he no longer stalls a breakout, which is genuinely all that is asked.”
defensively-responsiblea strength· comes back; can be trusted with a lead
“a genuinely useful defensive defenceman who is the reason opponents do not enjoy playing here”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,371 minutes

Expected goals: 49%; 45th pct
Shot attempts: 47.9%; 33rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 49 for, 49 against. Expected: 51.7 and 53.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

36th

Numbers

45th

The two rank him within 9 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 — 70 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 · 81 games

Top speed: 23.2 mph; 94th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.86 a game
Distance: 2.92 miles a game
Hardest shot: 98.3 mph; 92nd 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 · 1371 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: BOS took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.0% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second pair, 1,371 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Elias Lindholm	48.0%	49.4%	50.6%
David Pastrnak	50.9%	48.0%	51.3%
Andrew Peeke	49.6%	48.7%	47.6%

48.0% together, 49.4% for him apart and 50.6% for Lindholm apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

161 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.