This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Urho Vaakanainen
Anaheim Ducks Defense
One goal in 136 NHL games, and thirteen conceded above expectation.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | BOS | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 9:06 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 16:51 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0.0 | 18:55 |
| 2021-22 | BOS/ANA | 29 | 0 | 6 | 6 | -5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 19:19 |
| 2022-23 | ANA | 23 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 16:27 |
| 2023-24 | ANA | 68 | 1 | 13 | 14 | 0 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 1.5 | 17:29 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 136 | 1 | 23 | 24 | -23 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 140 | 0.7 | 17:39 |
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
1 goal and 13 assists in 68 games — 14 points at 17:29 a night, even, on 67 shots with 26 penalty minutes. It is the only goal of his NHL career, in 136 games.
46.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,051 minutes, the 30th percentile. His ice went 41-45 against an expectation of 35.94-40.77 — twelve goals conceded above what the chances said, the largest defensive shortfall on the blue line.
The Finesse Game
67 attempts at a median of 52 feet, with 81 per cent from beyond 40 and 2 per cent from inside 20, converting at 1.5 per cent. One career goal in 136 games is not a small sample any more; there is no offence here at all.
Thirteen assists. The first pass is competent and short. He does not carry the puck out under pressure and he does not gain the offensive line with it.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 202. He defends the rush with his stick and takes the puck before contact is needed, and the gap control is the best thing about him.
He does not clear the front of his own net by force. 26 penalty minutes in 68 games is a low rate and he does not retaliate.
The Intangibles
Eighteenth overall in 2017 by Boston, traded here in 2022, and 136 NHL games spread across six seasons at 25.
He is a third-pairing defenceman who has been asked to play second-pairing minutes on a thirtieth-place team, and the four goals conceded above expectation are a smaller part of it than the assignment is. The honest read is that the ceiling is a competent bottom pair, and a first-round pick that becomes one is not a failure.
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
- 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.
“**He defends the rush with his stick and takes the puck before contact is needed**, and the gap control is the best thing about him.”
“He does not clear the front of his own net by force.”
“Thirteen assists. The first pass is competent and short. He does not carry the puck out under pressure and he does not gain the offensive line with it.”
“26 penalty minutes in 68 games is a low rate and he does not retaliate.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,051 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.8%
- 31st pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.4%
- 39th 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: 41 for, 45 against. Expected: 35.9 and 40.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 30 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
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 — 52 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 · 68 games
- Top speed
- 22.1 mph
- 68th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.35 a game
- Distance
- 2.38 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.5 mph
- 49th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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 · 1051 minutes at five-on-five
- Radko Gudas47%
- Cam Fowler18%
- Gustav Lindstromoff the roster17%
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
- ANA took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.8% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,051 minutes at five-on-five — 65th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radko Gudas | 50.1% | 44.0% | 46.8% |
| Troy Terry | 49.3% | 45.9% | 46.6% |
| Frank Vatrano | 38.6% | 49.9% | 45.3% |
50.1% together, 44.0% for him apart and 46.8% for Gudas 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
88 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 81% from beyond forty.