Photo by Voltmetro, CC BY-SA 3.0
Niko Mikkola
Florida Panthers Defense #77
Six foot six, chances dead level, and the goals went thirty-three to fifty-eight against.
| Season | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 68 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -1 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 68 | 4.4 | 20:21 |
| Career | 396 | 17 | 56 | 73 | +14 | 310 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 429 | 4.0 | 18:41 |
Last Season
Three goals and eight assists in 68 games — 11 points, minus-one, at 20:21 a night with 47 penalty minutes.
The Finesse Game
There is none and there is no pretence of any. A hundred and twenty-three unblocked attempts from a median of 46 feet, three goals. Seventeen goals in 396 career games.
Eight assists in 68 games of twenty-minute nights is close to the lowest offensive return in this edition. He makes the first pass short and gets off the ice.
The Physical Game
Six foot six, 204, and the reach ends plays before they begin. Forty-seven penalty minutes. He clears the crease, he closes hard, and he is one of the few defencemen in the league who can simply take a puck off a forward with an arm.
The Intangibles
The single most extreme case of the Florida season, and it deserves to be read carefully. The expected goals while he was on the ice were dead level — 48.8 for and 48.0 against across 1,197 minutes, at a 50.4 per cent share.
The actual goals went 33 for and 58 against.
That is a twenty-five goal gap on an even split of the chances, and there is no version of it that is about him. Florida’s goaltending came in forty goals worse than the chances it faced, the worst in the league, and a heavy defensive defenceman taking hard minutes is where that lands hardest.
He is 30, a hundred and twenty-seventh overall pick with a Stanley Cup. The minus-one on his record is the only number on this page that is not lying in one direction or the other.