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

Nikolas Matinpalo

An undrafted Finn who played his first 41 NHL games at 26 and took 84 per cent of his shot attempts from beyond 40 feet.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2023-24	OTT	4	0	0	0	+1	0	0	0	0	2	0.0	7:00
2024-25	OTT	41	1	3	4	-2	20	0	0	0	43	2.3	12:37
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	45	1	3	4	-1	20	0	0	0	45	2.2	12:07

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

1 goal and 3 assists in 41 games — 4 points at 12:37 a night, minus-2, with 20 penalty minutes.

48.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 39th percentile, across 486 minutes. His ice went 15-14 against an expectation of 16.63-17.80 — a third pairing that conceded more than the chances said it should have, on a sample small enough that it settles nothing.

The Finesse Game

43 attempts at a median of 54 feet with 84 per cent from beyond 40. One goal in 41 games. There is no offensive component to this player and the club has never asked for one.

The first pass is simple and mostly correct. He does not carry the puck and he does not attempt the play that turns into a rush the other way.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 213 and physically capable at NHL level, which was the open question when he arrived. He finishes checks and he defends the front of the net.

20 penalty minutes in 41 games is a slightly high rate for a third-pairing defenceman and most of it is the stick foul of a man playing at the edge of his speed.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, and he did not leave Finland until Ottawa signed him, arriving in North America at 25 after seven seasons of Finnish and Swedish professional hockey.

45 NHL games. He is 27, which means the ceiling is roughly whatever this is, and a seventh defenceman who can play third-pair minutes without embarrassing anybody has value on a club with this much money committed above him.

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
83.9% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“**Undrafted**, and he did not leave Finland until Ottawa signed him, arriving in North America at 25 after seven seasons of Finnish and Swedish professional hockey.”
clears-the-creasea strength· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He finishes checks and he defends the front of the net.”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“He finishes checks and he defends the front of the net.”
fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“20 penalty minutes in 41 games is a slightly high rate for a third-pairing defenceman and most of it is the stick foul of a man playing at the edge of his speed.”
transitionhe lacks it· carries it out; gains the line under control
“He does not carry the puck and he does not attempt the play that turns into a rush the other way.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 486 minutes

Expected goals: 48.3%; 37th pct
Shot attempts: 48%; 34th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 15 for, 14 against. Expected: 16.6 and 17.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

13th

Numbers

37th

The numbers rank him 24 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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 · 41 games

Top speed: 22.6 mph; 86th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.85 a game
Distance: 1.81 miles a game
Hardest shot: 94.6 mph; 75th 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 · 486 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: OTT took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.3% — 1.9 below the club he did it on.
The role: Third pair, 486 minutes at five-on-five — 15th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Tyler Kleven	44.4%	54.5%	44.5%
Tim Stützle	59.4%	42.6%	53.0%
Adam Gaudette	39.7%	51.2%	54.7%

44.4% together, 54.5% for him apart and 44.5% for Kleven apart. He was better away from Kleven, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Kleven.

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

62 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 7 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.