This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Radek Faksa
St. Louis Blues Center
Thirteenth overall in 2012, and nine seasons of the same defensive job.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | DAL | 45 | 5 | 7 | 12 | +9 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 67 | 7.5 | 12:21 |
| 2016-17 | DAL | 80 | 12 | 21 | 33 | -6 | 67 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 132 | 9.1 | 16:10 |
| 2017-18 | DAL | 79 | 17 | 16 | 33 | +21 | 36 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 118 | 14.4 | 15:16 |
| 2018-19 | DAL | 81 | 15 | 15 | 30 | -3 | 54 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 114 | 13.2 | 16:26 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 66 | 11 | 9 | 20 | -6 | 42 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 109 | 10.1 | 15:53 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 55 | 6 | 8 | 14 | -15 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 94 | 6.4 | 17:26 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 77 | 5 | 14 | 19 | -20 | 52 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 89 | 5.6 | 15:46 |
| 2022-23 | DAL | 81 | 11 | 9 | 20 | +9 | 39 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 88 | 12.5 | 13:43 |
| 2023-24 | DAL | 74 | 7 | 12 | 19 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 71 | 9.9 | 12:31 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 638 | 89 | 111 | 200 | -11 | 356 | 6 | 8 | 14 | 882 | 10.1 | 15:07 |
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
74 games with Dallas, 7 goals and 12 assists for 19 points, 2 shorthanded, 20 penalty minutes, 12:31 a night and even, with 2 game-winners. He took 50.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 768 minutes, the 56th percentile, and his ice went 29-34 against an expectation of 26.79-26.40.
Two goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and eight more conceded than they called for. Finishing even on the season from a checking centre on a club that was outscored is a fair result.
The Finesse Game
119 attempts at a median of 20 feet with 47 per cent of them from inside twenty, 69 of those on goal, converted at 9.9 per cent against a career 10.09 across 882 shots.
Eighty-nine career goals and 111 assists in 638 games, and 6 power-play goals in nine seasons. Everything he produces comes from close range on the forecheck; there is no creation in his game and there has never needed to be.
The Physical Game
He is 6-3 and 216 and took 20 penalty minutes.
356 career penalty minutes in 638 games. He wins defensive-zone pucks with his frame and holds them until help arrives, and nine seasons of taking the other club’s best centre have cost him more penalty minutes than points.
The Intangibles
Thirteenth overall in 2012 by Dallas, nine seasons, two organisations, and 200 points in 638 games.
Eight career shorthanded goals and a career minus-11 across nine seasons of the hardest defensive assignment. He was a top-fifteen pick who became a checking centre and has been an excellent one for a decade.
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.
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
38% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 8th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“He wins defensive-zone pucks with his frame and holds them until help arrives, and nine seasons of taking the other club's best centre have cost him more penalty minutes than points.”
“Eight career shorthanded goals and a career minus-11 across nine seasons of the hardest defensive assignment.”
“Everything he produces comes from close range on the forecheck; there is no creation in his game and there has never needed to be.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 768 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.4%
- 56th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.1%
- 90th 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: 29 for, 34 against. Expected: 26.8 and 26.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 11 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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 · 74 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 32nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.72 a game
- Distance
- 2.06 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.4 mph
- 89th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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 with DAL · 768 minutes at five-on-five
- Sam Steel63%
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 50.4% — 4.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 768 minutes at five-on-five — 36th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Craig Smith | 53.0% | 43.1% | 62.8% |
| Sam Steel | 49.4% | 51.8% | 51.5% |
| Ryan Suter | 50.2% | 50.5% | 54.1% |
53.0% together, 43.1% for him apart and 62.8% for Smith apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Smith and did not follow 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
119 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 27 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.