This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zemgus Girgensons
Tampa Bay Lightning Center
Two goals in 82 games, and the ice he was on outscored its expectation by fifteen.
| 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 | TBL | 82 | 2 | 4 | 6 | -7 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 83 | 2.4 | 11:40 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 770 | 91 | 103 | 194 | -73 | 239 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 1090 | 8.3 | 13:59 |
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
2 goals and 4 assists in 82 games — 6 points at 11:40 a night, minus-7, with 47 penalty minutes.
52.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 71st percentile, across 809 minutes. His ice went 44-35 against an expectation of 28.92-26.61 — fifteen goals better than expected for on a fourth line, which is not a thing anybody arranges.
The Finesse Game
83 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 47 per cent from inside 20, and 2 goals — a 2.4 per cent conversion, the lowest of any forward in this edition who took eighty shots.
4 assists in 82 games. 91 goals in 770 NHL games is the whole record and it has never been the reason he is employed.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 197 and he forechecks harder than almost anybody on this roster. He finishes every check, he goes to the net, and he blocks shots.
47 penalty minutes in 82 games at under twelve minutes a night is a high rate. He does not back out of anything and a share of it is the extra shove.
The Intangibles
Fourteenth overall in 2012 and 770 games and 194 points across two organisations — he was an All-Star in Buffalo at 20 on a fan vote from Latvia and has been a fourth-line centre ever since.
He is 31. On a club that scored 283 goals, a fourth-line forechecker who cannot score is affordable in a way it would not be anywhere else.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 809 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.1%
- 72nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.5%
- 59th 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: 44 for, 35 against. Expected: 28.9 and 26.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 47 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 — 68 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 · 809 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Paul16%
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
- TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.1% — 1.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 809 minutes at five-on-five — 37th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luke Glendening | 52.3% | 51.8% | 35.7% |
| Michael Eyssimont | 55.6% | 50.5% | 51.1% |
| Nick Perbix | 45.7% | 55.0% | 50.5% |
52.3% together, 51.8% for him apart and 35.7% for Glendening apart. Glendening was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Glendening 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
119 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 9 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.