Photo by Saeima, CC BY-SA 2.0
Uvis Balinskis
Florida Panthers Defense #26
Undrafted out of Latvia, and 20 goals of bad luck in 770 minutes.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | FLA | 26 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 4.5 | 14:06 |
| 2024-25 | FLA | 76 | 4 | 14 | 18 | -7 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 92 | 4.3 | 14:51 |
| 2025-26 | FLA | 54 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -13 | 30 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 66 | 7.6 | 16:22 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 156 | 10 | 26 | 36 | -20 | 65 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 180 | 5.6 | 15:15 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 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 54 games — 15 points, minus-13, at 16:22 a night.
The Finesse Game
Modest. 83 unblocked attempts from a median of 47 feet, 4 per cent inside 20, 5 goals. 3 of them came on the power play, which for a third-pair defenceman is a curiosity rather than a skill.
36 points in 156 career games. He moves the puck adequately and does not create.
The Physical Game
6 foot even, 196, and he defends without imposing. 30 penalty minutes in 54 games. He is not clearing a crease against a heavy winger, and on the third pair that is exposed more often than it should be.
The Intangibles
48.3 per cent of the expected goals, 40th percentile — the weakest of Florida’s regular defencemen, and nowhere near bad enough to explain what happened.
The chances while he was on the ice ran 29.8 to 31.8 against, a deficit of 2 and a half goals. The actual goals went 27 for and 36 against.
20 goals of gap in 772 minutes. Mikkola’s page carries the same story 25 goals deep. This is what the league’s worst goaltending does to the men in front of it, and it is why the minus column on this roster should be ignored almost entirely.
He is 30, undrafted, and a serviceable third-pair defenceman being read as a disaster.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 772 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.3%
- 40th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.9%
- 67th 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: 27 for, 36 against. Expected: 29.8 and 31.8.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 29 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 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, 2025-26 · 54 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 95th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.61 a game
- Distance
- 2.37 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 97.2 mph
- 89th 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 88.9
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.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
5
points in his last 10 games — 2 goals, 3 assists, 23 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 772 minutes at five-on-five
- Jeff Petryoff the roster41%
- Niko Mikkola38%
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, 2025-26
- The club
- FLA took 50.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.3% — 2.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 772 minutes at five-on-five — 36th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Petry | 49.6% | 47.6% | 53.0% |
| Niko Mikkola | 46.3% | 49.8% | 52.4% |
| Sam Bennett | 44.5% | 50.4% | 52.5% |
49.6% together, 47.6% for him apart and 53.0% for Petry apart. Petry 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
83 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 36 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.