This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Stefan Noesen

22 goals with 64 per cent of his shots taken from inside 20 feet — the most extreme interior profile in this edition.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	ANA	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	—	6:54
2015-16	ANA	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	—	10:02
2016-17	ANA/NJD	44	8	2	10	+6	24	0	0	0	63	12.7	11:07
2017-18	NJD	72	13	14	27	+12	36	0	0	4	127	10.2	13:17
2018-19	NJD	41	3	5	8	-19	28	0	0	0	64	4.7	12:44
2019-20	PIT/SJS	40	7	2	9	-1	32	1	0	2	67	10.4	11:32
2020-21	SJS/TOR	6	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	5	0.0	9:37
2021-22	CAR	2	0	0	0	+1	0	0	0	0	4	0.0	14:20
2022-23	CAR	78	13	23	36	+11	32	7	0	4	134	9.7	12:20
2023-24	CAR	81	14	23	37	+13	33	3	0	3	111	12.6	11:52
2024-25	NJD	78	22	19	41	-8	54	11	0	5	165	13.3	15:56
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	444	80	88	168	+15	241	22	0	18	740	10.8	12:50

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

22 goals and 19 assists in 78 games for 41 points, minus-8, on 15:56 a night with 11 on the power play and 54 penalty minutes.

53.1 per cent at five-on-five, the 79th percentile, with on-ice goals of 38-35 against an expected 40.5-35.7. A median shot distance of 13 feet with 64 per cent of his attempts inside 20 — the most extreme interior shot chart in this entire edition.

The Finesse Game

There is almost no handling and it is not required. The entire game is arriving at the front of the net before the defenceman and being ready — 165 shots from a median of 13 feet is a statistical profile that perhaps three players in the league share.

19 assists is honest. 11 power-play goals from the paint is the specific job he is on this roster to do and he is among the best in the league at it.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 205, and he takes an enormous amount of punishment. He stands in the crease, absorbs cross-checks, and does not leave, and he forechecks with genuine intent.

54 penalty minutes over 78 games. The body has held up better than it should for a man who plays entirely in the most contested twelve feet of the ice.

The Intangibles

A first-round pick who spent five years in the American League, six organisations, and a career that only became an NHL one at 29.

At 32 the projection is 18 goals and the same willingness. On a club with the best power play in the league, he is the least replaceable part of 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.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
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.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
69.7% of his attempts in the slot, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“The entire game is arriving at the front of the net before the defenceman and being ready”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“He stands in the crease, absorbs cross-checks, and does not leave”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“he forechecks with genuine intent”
playmakerpresent and ordinary· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“19 assists is honest.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 953 minutes

Expected goals: 53.1%; 79th pct
Shot attempts: 52.6%; 79th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 35 against. Expected: 40.5 and 35.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

76th

Numbers

79th

The two rank him within 3 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 — 77 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 · 78 games

Top speed: 21.0 mph; 9th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.27 a game
Distance: 2.52 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.0 mph; 59th pct

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 · 953 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: NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.1% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 953 minutes at five-on-five — 54th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Nico Hischier	55.8%	50.5%	52.2%
Timo Meier	58.0%	48.6%	52.0%
Johnathan Kovacevic	53.1%	53.2%	51.7%

55.8% together, 50.5% for him apart and 52.2% for Hischier 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

238 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 22 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 64% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.