This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Simon Nemec
New Jersey Devils Defense
27 games at 21 and a 39 per cent chance share — the 1st percentile in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | NJD | 60 | 3 | 16 | 19 | -7 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 73 | 4.1 | 19:52 |
| 2024-25 | NJD | 27 | 2 | 2 | 4 | -10 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 26 | 7.7 | 14:59 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 87 | 5 | 18 | 23 | -17 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 99 | 5.1 | 18:21 |
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
2 goals and 2 assists in 27 games for 4 points, minus-10, on 14:59 a night.
38 per cent at five-on-five, the 0th percentile among all skaters in the league, over 340 minutes. His on-ice goals were 7-16 against an expected 9.9-16.2. Not one of his 26 shots came from inside 20 feet.
The Finesse Game
The passing was the reason he was a 2nd overall pick and it has not shown at this level. 4 points in 27 games, 26 shots, and no meaningful offensive contribution across two partial NHL seasons.
He does not stall a breakout under moderate pressure. Under a real forecheck the decisions come apart, which is what a 1st-percentile chance share looks like.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 190, and he is not strong enough yet. He loses board battles to NHL forwards and cannot defend a net front, and the gap control is a year or two behind.
14 penalty minutes over 27 games is a high rate for the ice time and it is the tell of a defenceman being beaten.
The Intangibles
The 2nd overall pick in 2022, a strong American League record, and two NHL seasons that have gone badly enough to raise real questions.
At 21 there is time and a 1st-percentile share over 340 minutes is the worst number in this chapter. The club has three defencemen ahead of him on the right side and no obvious way to give him the minutes he needs.
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.
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
63% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“Under a real forecheck the decisions come apart, which is what a 1st-percentile chance share looks like.”
“He loses board battles to NHL forwards and cannot defend a net front, and the gap control is a year or two behind.”
“cannot defend a net front”
“6-1 and 190, and he is not strong enough yet.”
“14 penalty minutes over 27 games is a high rate for the ice time and it is the tell of a defenceman being beaten.”
“The passing was the reason he was a 2nd overall pick and it has not shown at this level.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 340 minutes
- Expected goals
- 38%
- 1st pct
- Shot attempts
- 42.9%
- 5th 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: 7 for, 16 against. Expected: 9.9 and 16.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 10 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 — 64 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 · 27 games
- Top speed
- 21.3 mph
- 31st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.22 a game
- Distance
- 2.25 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 85.2 mph
- 20th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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 · 340 minutes at five-on-five
- Seamus Casey18%
- Luke Hughes12%
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
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 38.0% — 12.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 340 minutes at five-on-five — 8th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brenden Dillon | 45.0% | 33.5% | 50.3% |
| Timo Meier | 36.9% | 38.3% | 55.5% |
| Erik Haula | 39.3% | 37.4% | 48.5% |
45.0% together, 33.5% for him apart and 50.3% for Dillon apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Dillon 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
40 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 54 feet. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.