This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Edmonton Oilers Center
Forty-six per cent of his points came on the power play — the 4th-highest of the 393 qualified forwards — on a 46.3 per cent chance share.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | EDM | 62 | 18 | 34 | 52 | -2 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 134 | 13.4 | 17:36 |
| 2012-13 | EDM | 40 | 4 | 20 | 24 | +3 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 5.1 | 18:52 |
| 2013-14 | EDM | 80 | 19 | 37 | 56 | -12 | 26 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 178 | 10.7 | 20:24 |
| 2014-15 | EDM | 76 | 24 | 32 | 56 | -12 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 189 | 12.7 | 20:38 |
| 2015-16 | EDM | 55 | 12 | 22 | 34 | -9 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 108 | 11.1 | 19:04 |
| 2016-17 | EDM | 82 | 18 | 25 | 43 | -10 | 29 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 200 | 9.0 | 17:42 |
| 2017-18 | EDM | 62 | 24 | 24 | 48 | +10 | 20 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 151 | 15.9 | 18:05 |
| 2018-19 | EDM | 82 | 28 | 41 | 69 | -13 | 26 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 208 | 13.5 | 20:06 |
| 2019-20 | EDM | 65 | 22 | 39 | 61 | +1 | 33 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 172 | 12.8 | 20:28 |
| 2020-21 | EDM | 52 | 16 | 19 | 35 | -4 | 22 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 135 | 11.8 | 20:46 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 63 | 11 | 39 | 50 | +3 | 16 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 154 | 7.1 | 19:19 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 719 | 196 | 332 | 528 | -45 | 239 | 51 | 6 | 25 | 1707 | 11.5 | 19:23 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
11 goals and 39 assists in 63 games — 50 points and a plus-3 at 19:19 a night, the 90th percentile among forwards. 2:01 a night short-handed is the 92nd percentile and 3:28 on the power play is the 94th.
46.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 862 minutes, the 21st percentile — the worst share of any Edmonton forward who played sixty games. His ice went 39-35 against an expectation of 31.07-36.11: eight more goals for than the chances promised.
Sixteen playoff games for 6 goals and 8 assists.
The Finesse Game
Forty-six per cent of his points came on the power play — the 4th-highest of the 393 qualified forwards. Twenty-three of his fifty. On a unit that led the league, that is the most exposed production in this chapter.
Eleven goals on 154 shots is 7.1 per cent, the 13th percentile — the finishing is poor and has been for several years. 7.59 shots per 60 is the 56th.
1.51 even-strength points per 60 is the 33rd percentile. Strip out the man advantage and a 50-point season becomes a third-line one.
2.12 takeaways per 60 is the 81st percentile against 1.68 giveaways at the 60th — a good ledger, and the reason he kills penalties.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 192. 2.07 hits per 60 is the 22nd percentile and 1.68 blocks the 49th. He is a positional defender rather than a contact one, at two minutes a night short-handed.
22.3 mph is the 40th percentile, 3.9 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 33rd, and 9.45 miles per 60 is the 33rd. All three ordinary. At 29, on a club where the two men above him are top-ten in the league for speed, that is the gap the eye sees and the tracking confirms.
0.39 penalties taken per 60 is the 20th percentile — sixteen minutes in sixty-three games, which on this roster is the cleanest record of any regular forward.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2011, and 719 NHL games at 29 with 528 points and a career minus-45.
Eleven seasons in Edmonton, none of them above 69 points, and the club has spent all of them building around two other men. He has been the third forward on this roster for six years and the file says he is exactly that.
With Kailer Yamamoto he took 45.7 per cent over 705 attempts and 46.7 without. With Cody Ceci 42.9 over 536 and 48.1 without. Nothing he plays with improves and nothing improves him.
A 46 per cent chance share on a conference finalist is the number that will decide what he is worth, and the power-play share is the number that hides it.
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.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
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.
“a good ledger, and the reason he kills penalties”
“He is a positional defender rather than a contact one”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 862 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.3%
- 25th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48%
- 37th 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: 39 for, 35 against. Expected: 31.1 and 36.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 13 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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, 2021-22 · 63 games
- Top speed
- 22.3 mph
- 57th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.25 a game
- Distance
- 3.04 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.2 mph
- 61st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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
2021-22 · 862 minutes at five-on-five
- Zach Hyman26%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- EDM took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.3% — 5.0 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 862 minutes at five-on-five — 46th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kailer Yamamoto | 45.7% | 46.7% | 49.3% |
| Cody Ceci | 42.9% | 48.1% | 53.6% |
| Leon Draisaitl | 44.1% | 47.4% | 51.7% |
45.7% together, 46.7% for him apart and 49.3% for Yamamoto apart. Yamamoto 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
182 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.