Photo by Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Wyatt Kaiser
Chicago Blackhawks Defense #44
19 and a half minutes a night, and the 13th percentile in both columns.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | CHI | 9 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.0 | 18:36 |
| 2023-24 | CHI | 32 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0.0 | 17:19 |
| 2024-25 | CHI | 57 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 6.1 | 18:07 |
| 2025-26 | CHI | 77 | 6 | 11 | 17 | -16 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 75 | 8.0 | 19:37 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 175 | 10 | 25 | 35 | -20 | 74 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 173 | 5.8 | 18:39 |
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
6 goals and 11 assists in 77 games — 17 points, minus-16, at 19:37 a night with 1,340 5-on-5 minutes.
The Finesse Game
The skating is fine and the first pass is quick, which is why a third-round pick is playing top-4 minutes at 23. 6 goals from 112 unblocked attempts, median 48 feet, 11 per cent inside 20 — a point shooter who gets a few through.
11 assists in 77 games from those minutes is a low return and says the offence is not coming.
The Physical Game
6 foot even, 190, and small for the job. 34 penalty minutes. In front of his own net he is outmuscled routinely and the club has no bigger option to move him for.
The Intangibles
44 per cent of the expected goals, 11th percentile; 45.0 per cent of the shot attempts, 11th. The expected goals ran 48.0 to 61.1 against across 1,340 minutes and the actual goals 50-66.
5 points in his last 10.
Every defenceman on this roster posted numbers in this range and it is genuinely difficult to separate the men from the situation. What can be said is that Kaiser is 23, has 175 games, and is being asked to play a role 2 levels above where a third-round pick should be at this stage. That is Chicago’s problem more than his.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,340 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44%
- 11th pct
- Shot attempts
- 45%
- 12th 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: 50 for, 66 against. Expected: 48.0 and 61.1.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe two rank him within 3 points of one another. It was written with these numbers on screen, so the agreement is not corroboration — the arithmetic is on both sides of it.
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 — 63 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 · 77 games
- Top speed
- 22.4 mph
- 77th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.84 a game
- Distance
- 2.78 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.1 mph
- 42nd 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 — 1 goals, 4 assists, 15 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 1340 minutes at five-on-five
- Sam Rinzel28%
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
- CHI took 43.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.0% — 0.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,340 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artyom Levshunov | 42.6% | 44.8% | 42.0% |
| Connor Bedard | 44.9% | 43.5% | 42.8% |
| Sam Rinzel | 44.6% | 43.7% | 43.2% |
42.6% together, 44.8% for him apart and 42.0% for Levshunov apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
112 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 60% from beyond forty.