This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Niko Mikkola
Florida Panthers Defense
Six foot six, all 82 games, and the minutes nobody else on a Stanley Cup club wanted.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | STL | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0 | 14:22 |
| 2020-21 | STL | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -11 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 4.5 | 14:31 |
| 2021-22 | STL | 54 | 3 | 10 | 13 | -6 | 55 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 58 | 5.2 | 16:59 |
| 2022-23 | STL/NYR | 81 | 1 | 5 | 6 | +6 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 62 | 1.6 | 17:26 |
| 2023-24 | FLA | 82 | 3 | 14 | 17 | +11 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 93 | 3.2 | 20:02 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 252 | 8 | 32 | 40 | +3 | 193 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 245 | 3.3 | 17:47 |
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
All 82 games, 3 goals and 14 assists for 17 points, 69 penalty minutes, 20:02 a night and plus-11. He took 51.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,422 minutes, the 65th percentile, and his ice went 50-49 against an expectation of 56.77-52.95.
Seven goals of scoring that did not arrive and four fewer conceded than the chances called for. The 65th percentile is the lowest of any regular defenceman on the club and it is also the hardest assignment on it.
The Finesse Game
93 shots at a median of 49 feet with 68 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 3.2 per cent. Eight goals in 252 career games.
32 career assists in 252 games. The first pass is simple and it is made on time, and there is nothing behind it. He does not carry the puck and he does not try to.
The Physical Game
He defends with his reach at 6-6 and takes the man off the wall without needing to hit him hard.
He clears the front of his own net and is hard to move anywhere near it. 69 penalty minutes in 82 games and 193 in 252 career games is a real rate, and a good share of it is a stick when a quicker forward has beaten him.
The Intangibles
A fifth-round pick in 2015 out of Kiiminki, five seasons across three organisations, and 40 points in 252 games. He kills penalties and has 1 career shorthanded goal.
He played all 82 games at twenty minutes a night for a club that won the Stanley Cup and finished with 17 points. That is the least glamorous useful season anybody had in this edition.
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
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
“He defends with his reach at 6-6 and takes the man off the wall without needing to hit him hard.”
“He clears the front of his own net and is hard to move anywhere near it.”
“He clears the front of his own net and is hard to move anywhere near it.”
“69 penalty minutes in 82 games and 193 in 252 career games is a real rate, and a good share of it is a stick when a quicker forward has beaten him.”
“He kills penalties and has 1 career shorthanded goal.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,422 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.7%
- 66th pct
- Shot attempts
- 54%
- 85th 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: 50 for, 49 against. Expected: 56.8 and 53.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 42 points above where the report does. 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. 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.6 mph
- 82nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.78 a game
- Distance
- 3.01 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.0 mph
- 23rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1422 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, 2023-24
- The club
- FLA took 53.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.7% — 2.0 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,422 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Montour | 51.2% | 52.5% | 58.3% |
| Matthew Tkachuk | 50.6% | 52.4% | 57.9% |
| Sam Bennett | 52.2% | 51.5% | 58.4% |
51.2% together, 52.5% for him apart and 58.3% for Montour apart. Montour was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
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
127 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.