This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Wyatt Kaiser
Chicago Blackhawks Defense
Thirty-two games at 21 and the best chance share of any defenceman who actually played here.
| 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 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 41 | 0 | 10 | 10 | -4 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 0.0 | 17:36 |
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
Thirty-two games, no goals and 7 assists, 17:19 a night and exactly even. He took 44.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 483 minutes, the 16th percentile, and his ice went 23-27 against an expectation of 17.47-21.85.
That is the highest chance share of any defenceman on the roster who earned it in Chicago, on a club that took 41.9 per cent as a whole. It is a small sample and it is the only encouraging defensive number here.
The Finesse Game
Eighteen shots in 32 games and none of them went in — 4 per cent from inside 20 feet, 81 per cent from beyond 40. He has no goals in 41 career games and there is nothing in the shot to suggest that changes soon.
Ten assists in those 41 games is the better half. He skates well enough to retreat, turn and start the breakout under a forecheck, and the first pass is quick and low-risk.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 190 and does not win many battles below the goal line. Twenty-two penalty minutes in 32 games is a high rate for a young defenceman and most of them are the stick fouls of a man beaten to a spot.
The defending is positional and it works when the play is in front of him. It does not work when a heavy forward has body position in the corner.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2020 out of Minnesota, three years at Minnesota-Duluth, and now a professional at 22. He is fourth or fifth in a queue of young Chicago defencemen and the least talked about of them.
Thirty-two games is not a verdict. The share is the reason to keep looking.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 483 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.4%
- 16th pct
- Shot attempts
- 43.7%
- 10th 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: 23 for, 27 against. Expected: 17.5 and 21.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 14 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 50 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 483 minutes at five-on-five
- Nikita Zaitsevoff the roster24%
- Jarred Tinordioff the roster23%
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
- CHI took 41.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.4% — 2.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 483 minutes at five-on-five — 17th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lukas Reichel | 49.8% | 42.3% | 37.1% |
| Tyler Johnson | 49.6% | 42.2% | 38.6% |
| Ryan Donato | 43.7% | 44.7% | 42.1% |
49.8% together, 42.3% for him apart and 37.1% for Reichel 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
27 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 81% from beyond forty.