This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zach Whitecloud
Vegas Golden Knights Defense
Undrafted, the 84th percentile of chances, and the first Indigenous player from Manitoba to win a Stanley Cup.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | VGK | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 16:42 |
| 2019-20 | VGK | 16 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 14:19 |
| 2020-21 | VGK | 51 | 2 | 10 | 12 | +9 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 54 | 3.7 | 17:49 |
| 2021-22 | VGK | 59 | 8 | 11 | 19 | +21 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 94 | 8.5 | 18:48 |
| 2022-23 | VGK | 59 | 5 | 7 | 12 | +10 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 7.8 | 17:07 |
| 2023-24 | VGK | 61 | 2 | 12 | 14 | -3 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 51 | 3.9 | 17:35 |
| 2024-25 | VGK | 74 | 4 | 9 | 13 | +7 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 5.6 | 17:31 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 321 | 21 | 50 | 71 | +50 | 158 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 344 | 6.1 | 17:35 |
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
4 goals and 9 assists in 74 games — 13 points at 17:31 a night, plus-7, with 37 penalty minutes on 72 shots.
53.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 84th percentile. His ice went 60-50 against an expectation of 50.06-43.24 — ten goals better than expected for and seven worse against, on a second pairing.
The Finesse Game
72 attempts in 74 games at a median of 54 feet with 74 per cent from beyond 40 and 4 per cent from inside 20, and 4 goals. He does not shoot.
9 assists. The first pass is simple and quick and that is the whole puck game; under a heavy forecheck he goes off the wall rather than attempting anything.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 210 and he plays a hard game. He clears the front of his own net, he blocks shots, and he finishes checks.
37 penalty minutes in 74 games is a moderate rate. He is not an agitator and the physicality is structural rather than provocative.
The Intangibles
Undrafted out of Bemidji State, and he signed here in 2018 — 321 games and 71 points, all of it in one uniform, with a Stanley Cup in 2023.
He is 28. He is Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and among the small number of Indigenous players to have won a Stanley Cup, and the whole file is an undrafted college defenceman who has played 321 NHL games.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,152 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.7%
- 84th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.8%
- 72nd 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: 60 for, 50 against. Expected: 50.1 and 43.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 42 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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
2024-25 · 1152 minutes at five-on-five
- Noah Hanifin38%
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
- VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.7% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,152 minutes at five-on-five — 81st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noah Hanifin | 58.7% | 50.2% | 54.4% |
| Nicolas Hague | 50.6% | 55.3% | 46.0% |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 54.8% | 53.2% | 57.8% |
58.7% together, 50.2% for him apart and 54.4% for Hanifin 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
109 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 35 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.