This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nils Lundkvist
Dallas Stars Defense
Two goals on seventy-three shots, 83 per cent of them from beyond forty feet, and a plus-13.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | NYR | 25 | 1 | 3 | 4 | +4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 3.1 | 13:56 |
| 2022-23 | DAL | 60 | 6 | 10 | 16 | -5 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 94 | 6.4 | 16:19 |
| 2023-24 | DAL | 59 | 2 | 17 | 19 | +13 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 73 | 2.7 | 14:06 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 144 | 9 | 30 | 39 | +12 | 42 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 199 | 4.5 | 14:60 |
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
Fifty-nine games, 2 goals and 17 assists, 14:06 a night and plus-13. He took 53.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 775 minutes, the 79th percentile, and his ice went 46-34 against an expectation of 36.28-31.49.
Nineteen points from a third-pair defenceman at fourteen minutes a night is good value, and a plus-13 behind a club with this structure is what a third pair should look like.
The Finesse Game
Seventy-three shots at a median of 57 feet with 83 per cent from beyond 40 and 2 per cent from inside 20 — the most perimeter shot profile on the roster by a distance. Two went in.
Seventeen assists in 59 games and 30 in 144 career games. The first pass is quick and the puck moves north, and it is why a first-round pick who could not hold a job in New York has one here.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 194 and defends with position rather than contact. Sixteen penalty minutes in 59 games is a low rate.
He does not win the wall against heavy wingers and he does not clear a crease. On the third pair behind Heiskanen, Harley and Lindell it is not asked of him.
The Intangibles
The 28th pick in 2018 out of Pitea, who asked to be traded out of New York at 21 and has played 144 games at 24. He is plus-12 across all of them.
Dallas has added Dumba, Lyubushkin and Smith to a blue line where he was the sixth defenceman. The chance share says he should keep the job and the roster says he probably will not.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 775 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.5%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.4%
- 82nd 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: 46 for, 34 against. Expected: 36.3 and 31.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 68 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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 · 775 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Suternow STL40%
- Esa Lindell24%
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
- DAL took 54.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.5% — 1.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 775 minutes at five-on-five — 37th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Suter | 57.1% | 51.1% | 53.0% |
| Wyatt Johnston | 56.1% | 52.5% | 57.7% |
| Matt Duchene | 51.7% | 54.3% | 50.7% |
57.1% together, 51.1% for him apart and 53.0% for Suter apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
103 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 58 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.