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.
49.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 71st percentile, across 809 minutes. His ice went 13-20 against an expectation of 25.13-25.44 — 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 294 goals, a fourth-line forechecker who cannot score is affordable in a way it would not be anywhere else.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He finishes every check, he goes to the net, and he blocks shots.”
“He finishes every check, he goes to the net, and he blocks shots.”
“He finishes every check, he goes to the net, and he blocks shots.”
“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.”
“He does not back out of anything and a share of it is the extra shove.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 809 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.7%
- 49th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50%
- 52nd 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: 13 for, 20 against. Expected: 25.1 and 25.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 24 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 84th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.82 a game
- Distance
- 1.84 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.0 mph
- 59th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
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 49.7% — 1.1 below 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 | 49.1% | 50.3% | 35.3% |
| Michael Eyssimont | 53.8% | 47.9% | 50.2% |
| Nick Perbix | 42.0% | 53.4% | 50.3% |
49.1% together, 50.3% for him apart and 35.3% 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.