This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zemgus Girgensons
Tampa Bay Lightning Center
Six hundred and eighty-eight games and a career minus-66, arriving from ten seasons in Buffalo.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | BUF | 70 | 8 | 14 | 22 | -6 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 115 | 7.0 | 15:19 |
| 2014-15 | BUF | 61 | 15 | 15 | 30 | -16 | 25 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 115 | 13.0 | 19:05 |
| 2015-16 | BUF | 71 | 7 | 11 | 18 | 0 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 110 | 6.4 | 15:02 |
| 2016-17 | BUF | 75 | 7 | 9 | 16 | -7 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 112 | 6.3 | 13:10 |
| 2017-18 | BUF | 71 | 7 | 8 | 15 | -12 | 26 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 113 | 6.2 | 13:43 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 72 | 5 | 13 | 18 | -11 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 6.4 | 13:37 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 69 | 12 | 7 | 19 | -1 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 85 | 14.1 | 13:48 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 56 | 10 | 8 | 18 | -7 | 27 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 92 | 10.9 | 14:47 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 80 | 10 | 8 | 18 | -5 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 114 | 8.8 | 12:59 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 63 | 8 | 6 | 14 | -1 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 73 | 11.0 | 11:51 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 688 | 89 | 99 | 188 | -66 | 192 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 1007 | 8.8 | 14:16 |
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
63 games with Buffalo, 8 goals and 6 assists for 14 points, 21 penalty minutes, 11:51 a night and minus-1, with 3 game-winners. He took 45.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 680 minutes, the 30th percentile, and his ice went 21-21 against an expectation of 23.85-28.30.
Three goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and seven goals of goaltending above them. Three game-winners out of eight goals is a high share for a fourth-line winger.
The Finesse Game
100 attempts at a median of 25 feet with 42 per cent of them from inside twenty, 68 of those on goal, converted at 11.0 per cent against a career 8.84 across 1,007 shots.
Eighty-nine career goals and 99 assists in 688 games. He goes to the net and works the wall and does nothing else with the puck; 188 points in ten seasons is what a bottom-six career looks like when the club never asks for more.
The Physical Game
He is 6-3 and 197 and took 21 penalty minutes.
192 career penalty minutes in 688 games. He is a large, heavy forechecker who finishes checks without taking many penalties for them, and the frame is the reason he has held a job for ten years.
The Intangibles
Fourteenth overall in 2012 by Buffalo, ten seasons, and Tampa Bay will be his second organisation.
Seven career shorthanded goals and a career minus-66 across 688 games, almost all of them in Buffalo. He was a top-fifteen pick who became a fourth-line winger and has been a useful one for a decade.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 680 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.7%
- 25th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.1%
- 56th 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: 21 for, 21 against. Expected: 23.9 and 28.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 42 points above where the numbers do. 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 — 73 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 with BUF · 680 minutes at five-on-five
- Kyle Okposooff the roster41%
- Peyton Krebs34%
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
- BUF took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.7% — 3.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 680 minutes at five-on-five — 30th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Okposo | 46.4% | 45.3% | 49.0% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 51.4% | 42.5% | 51.3% |
| Peyton Krebs | 45.9% | 45.6% | 47.6% |
46.4% together, 45.3% for him apart and 49.0% for Okposo 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
100 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.