Returning regular · 2025-26

Ivan Demidov

Montréal Canadiens · RW · L shot · age 20 at the dated snapshot.

Team: MTL
Lane: RW
Age: 20

Production and deployment

How the points were built

Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.

Games82

Goals19

Assists43

Points62

Even strength42all even-strength points

Power play20

Short handed0

Empty net0

5v5 points / 602.444

Average TOI15:30

PP TOI3:01

PK TOI0:00

Organizational context

4 RW regulars in MTL

The all-team median is 3.5. MTL’s farm system ranks #5 in the maintained two-board consensus.

Thin lane

Questions a GM still has to answer

How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?

Shot quality · 2025-26

Expected goals

CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC 0.756). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.

Unblocked shots207

Expected goals16.68.0% per shot

Goals19

Finishing+2.4goals above expected

CapOrCup measures · 2025-26

What happens while he plays

Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.

Share of chance quality59%4.27 expected goals for and 3.02 against per 60 minutes

Drive, three seasons (ranking measure)+0.2 pts5v5 chance share against his club without him, over this season and the two before (weights 1 / 0.7 / 0.4; 933 / 9 / 0 minutes) · 80% band -3.0 to 3.5 pts. This is the number the rankings order by: it predicts next season better than one season does.

Drive, this season only+0 ptsat 5-on-5, over 15.5 hours: his share minus the club's share when he is off the ice · with its 80% band: 0.1 pts, 80% band -3.4 to 3.1 pts

Setup (chances his passes produced)2.99 xG26 primary assists; 0.115 expected goals per pass on average, 0.141 per 60. A pass to a tap-in counts more than a pass to a point shot.

Drive, offence+0.12expected goals created per 60 with him on, minus the club without him

Drive, defence-0.11expected goals suppressed per 60 with him on, against the club without him; positive means fewer chances allowed

Isolated impact (RAPM), offence / defence+0.06 / +0.00expected goals per 60 at 5v5 with every teammate, opponent, score state, venue and zone start held as columns of one ridge regression; ± 0.10 / 0.10 SE over 933 minutes

Offensive-zone starts75%of his faceoffs in either end zone; heavy offensive use lifts the numbers above

Chance share, score-and-venue adjusted (5v5)49%raw 49%; each shot weighted by the league's share in that score state and venue, so trailing at home is not mistaken for tilting the ice

Finish, shrunk (goals above expected per 100 shots)-0.1raw +0.7 on 207 shots; the data carries 24% of the weight, the league the rest (about 580 shots to weight the player one half)

Company (linemates / opponents)average / averageteammates +0.3, opponents -0.1 points of relative chance share, weighted by seconds shared

Start +/- (goals begun on his shift)781 of them were scored after he had changed off

On the ice for101 for, 58 againstthe plus/minus view, for comparison

Giveaways that led to a goal0his own turnovers inside the sequence, over 21.2 hours on the ice

Line or pairLine 3his rank by 5-on-5 ice time within the club, most common over 30 games

LinematesOliver Kapanen, Juraj Slafkovskýshared 81% and 43% of his 5-on-5 time

Matchup55% vs first lines55% against the other club's first line (usual)

Shutdown (drive, defence, deployment removed)+0.01offence the same way -0.22; zone starts, opponent quality and first-line share removed by a league-wide fit

Two-way (offence + defence, deployment removed)-0.21chances created minus chances allowed per 60, against his club without him; a fast-paced player can allow more and still win here

Penalty kill0%not used on the penalty kill · 1 shorthanded minutes

Matchup rating (Elo)1550above the league middle · results by who he faced over 15.5 hours of 5-on-5; 82% chance share against the strongest opponents he saw most (Owen Power, Bowen Byram)

Finish rating (Elo)1513above the league middle · 19 goals on 207 shots worth 17.6 expected; rated against the goalies and the chances actually faced, so the same goal counts more against a strong goalie from a poor spot

In the play-by-play26.2 per 60how often the league's feed names him on the puck (the moments a caller says a name): 36th percentile of forwards; the feed never records carries or passes that do not end in a goal

Power-play rating (Elo)1454above the league middle · 8.8 expected goals per 60 on the power play over 246 minutes, rated against the penalty-killers faced (league rate 8.27)

Shot-lane rating (Elo)1544above the league middle · 199 of 272 attempts got through (73%), rated against the defenders on the ice

Lane defence rating (Elo, unit)1474above the league middle · 295 of 1007 attempts faced were blocked while he was on (29%); shared with the four others on the ice

Turnover balance-2.36 per 6020 takeaways, 70 giveaways (20 in his own end) over 21.2 hours; recorded by the league's scorers, so counts differ by rink

Blocked shots and hits1.3 · 1.3 per 6027 blocks, 27 hits given, 77 taken, 17 penalties taken

Real points620 empty-net points left out · 19 goals, 26 primary and 17 secondary assists · 20 on the power play

How these measures are defined, and where they stop.

Advanced scoring · 2025-26

Goals, assists and plus/minus, weighted by what they changed

Every goal counts the win probability it added, scaled so the average goal is 1.0: a late tying goal counts several, a goal at 6-1 or into an empty net late counts little. Plus/minus also credits the players on the ice when the goal's sequence began.

Advanced goals (aG)21.3from 19 goals · 2 clutch (worth twice an average goal or more) · +16.5 above the chances they came from

Advanced primary assists (aA1)33.4from 26 primary assists

Advanced secondary assists (aA2)14.5from 17 secondary assists; kept apart, not guessed at

Advanced points69.1against 62 scoresheet points

Advanced plus/minus (a+/-)+62.4on the ice for 105 goals for and 63 against, each weighted by what it changed · 1 of the goals for began on his shift after he had changed off · +2.95 per 60

Shot map · 2025-26

Where he shoots from, and how it goes

Every unblocked shot placed by distance, angle and shot type. His rate from each spot is set against the league's rate for the same shot from the same spot, so the edge is against everyone else taking that shot, not against an average.

His office (most-used spot)—fewer than 15 shots from any one spot

Crease (under 15 ft and inside 45°)9% of shots4 goals on 18 shots (22.2%, expected 17.8%)

Slot (under 30 ft and inside 40°)14% of shots2 goals on 30 shots (6.7%, expected 13.5%)

Circles (under 40 ft, wider)57% of shots12 goals on 118 shots (10.2%, expected 7.7%)

Point (40 ft and beyond inside 30°)11% of shots0 goals on 23 shots (0.0%, expected 3.1%)

Wall (40 ft and beyond, wide)9% of shots1 goals on 18 shots (5.6%, expected 2.4%)

Snap shots8.2%8 of 97; expected 9.5%

Slap shots10.9%5 of 46; expected 6.5%

Wrist shots12.5%5 of 40; expected 8.9%

Backhand shots9.1%1 of 11; expected 6.4%

Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games

Ivan Demidov, season by season

Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (80% band), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.

Seasons on file22024-25 to 2025-26

Best season77.62024-25, age 19, 2 games

Latest season57.2expected 29.8 to 85.3

Measured labels0none that passed its test

his seasonexpected range from his earlier seasonsposition, 10th to 90th percentile by ageposition median

Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.

What the numbers found

No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.

Projection at the draft

At the draft the model expected 141 NHL hours through his age-25 season (80% band 98 to 173). He logged 22 hours, below the 10th percentile. The model was applied to his draft class without being fitted or tested on it.

Every season

Season	Age	GP	Level	Expected (80%)
2024-25	19	2	77.6	−17.9 to 103.9
2025-26	20	82	57.2	29.8 to 85.3

Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29

Comparables at the same age

Who looked like this at 17 to 20

Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.

Comparables found8

Went on to two or more NHL seasons8 of 8

Their later peak (adjusted pts/game)1.06median across the comparables; this player's own line is below

This player so far: age 15 Russia U17 2.40 → age 16 MHL 1.17 → age 17 MHL 1.51 → age 18 MHL 2.00 → age 19 KHL 0.75 → age 20 NHL 0.76

All 3 columns shown

Player	Distance (lower is closer)	What he did afterwards
Gabriel VilardiC · matched at ages 17, 18, 20	0.05	age 21 NHL 0.43 → age 22 NHL 0.28 → age 23 NHL 0.65 → age 24 NHL 0.77 → age 25 NHL 0.86
Oliver BjorkstrandR · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.06	age 21 NHL 0.50 → age 22 NHL 0.49 → age 23 NHL 0.47 → age 24 NHL 0.73 → age 25 NHL 0.79
Matthew TkachukL · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.06	age 21 NHL 0.96 → age 22 NHL 0.88 → age 23 NHL 0.77 → age 24 NHL 1.27 → age 25 NHL 1.38
Wyatt JohnstonC · matched at ages 18, 19, 20	0.07	age 21 NHL 0.87 → age 22 NHL 1.05
Sean MonahanC · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.07	age 21 NHL 0.78 → age 22 NHL 0.71 → age 23 NHL 0.86 → age 24 NHL 1.05 → age 25 NHL 0.69
Sebastian AhoC · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.08	age 21 NHL 1.01 → age 22 NHL 0.97 → age 23 NHL 1.02 → age 24 NHL 1.02 → age 25 NHL 0.89
Alex DeBrincatR · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.08	age 21 NHL 0.93 → age 22 NHL 0.64 → age 23 NHL 1.08 → age 24 NHL 0.95 → age 25 NHL 0.81
Jordan EberleR · matched at ages 17, 18, 19, 20	0.09	age 21 NHL 0.97 → age 22 NHL 0.77 → age 23 NHL 0.81 → age 24 NHL 0.78 → age 25 NHL 0.68

Reading it

If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.

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