This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Radek Faksa
Dallas Stars Center
A checking centre back where he spent nine years, and 15 points to remind everyone why he left.
| 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 | STL | 70 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -2 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 68 | 7.3 | 13:01 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 708 | 94 | 121 | 215 | -13 | 386 | 6 | 8 | 15 | 950 | 9.9 | 14:55 |
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
5 goals and 10 assists in 70 games for 15 points, minus-2, on 13:01 a night with St. Louis.
A fourth-line checking centre’s season, which is what it was meant to be. 68 shots and 5 goals, and the value was in the faceoff circle and the penalty kill rather than anywhere the box score records.
The Finesse Game
There is not much and there has not been for years. The hands are heavy, the shot is ordinary, and 15 points is roughly what he has produced in each of the last five seasons.
What he does have is a genuinely good defensive read. He takes away the middle of the ice, supports the puck, and is one of the more reliable men in the league at a defensive-zone draw — which is a specific, narrow, and durable skill.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 216, and he plays a heavy, honest game. He finishes checks, wins pucks on the wall, and blocks shots on the kill without theatre.
30 penalty minutes over 70 games. The durability has been reliable throughout a career built on contact.
The Intangibles
Nine seasons in Dallas, a year in Missouri, and back on a cheap deal to do the job he always did. He knows precisely what he is for and there is no evidence of him ever having wanted more.
At 31 the legs are the question, because a checking centre who cannot get there first is just a slow forward. The club is paying fourth-line money for two or three more years of it, which is a reasonable bet.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
32.0% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
30% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 4th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“What he does have is a genuinely good defensive read. He takes away the middle of the ice, supports the puck”
“one of the more reliable men in the league at a defensive-zone draw”
“the value was in the faceoff circle and the penalty kill rather than anywhere the box score records”
“He finishes checks”
“wins pucks on the wall”
“blocks shots on the kill without theatre”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 789 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.6%
- 40th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.7%
- 31st 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: 25 for, 21 against. Expected: 23.1 and 24.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 4 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 70 games
- Top speed
- 21.3 mph
- 14th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.61 a game
- Distance
- 2.14 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.0 mph
- 79th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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 with STL · 789 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
- STL took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.6% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 789 minutes at five-on-five — 35th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexey Toropchenko | 48.2% | 50.0% | 47.7% |
| Nathan Walker | 47.4% | 50.9% | 45.9% |
| Ryan Suter | 43.6% | 51.1% | 49.0% |
48.2% together, 50.0% for him apart and 47.7% for Toropchenko apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
100 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.