Wednesday is the two-week mark of the 2025-26 NHL season, which means we have a pretty good sample size of players to look at already.
As of this past weekend, 726 players had suited up in a game, including 62 goaltenders, 228 defensemen and 436 forwards. On average, those players are 28.4 years old, 6-foot-1.5 tall and 201 pounds.
If you haven’t seen this post before, it’s an annual collection of various demographical odds and ends that I put together every year, early in the season, using data from NHL.com. You can check out last year’s version here.
The NHL has been trending slightly older and bigger over the past few seasons, but it’s a very subtle shift and there’s not much change from last season in this regard, so there’s probably not a lot to read into there. What you do see is a lot of team-by-team variation as rosters change with retirements, the arrival of rookies, etc.
Let’s dig into this year’s results.
Average age of forwards: 28.1
Average age of defensemen:Â 28.4
Average age of goalies: 29.8
NHL average age this season: 28.4Â
Analysis: Winnipeg as the oldest team is interesting, as they have just one player under 25 (Nikita Chibrikov) and a whopping 14 players who are over 30 years old, including most of their core. Their window is now.
The Canadiens, meanwhile, are incredibly young, with the addition of 19-year-old Ivan Demidov giving them 13 players under 25 years old and all but Josh Anderson, Mike Matheson and Brendan Gallagher under 30. Exciting times for the Habs.
Generally speaking, older teams tend to perform better in the standings (and playoffs), as the youngest listed here are largely rebuilding clubs. Of the bottom 11, only Montreal made the playoffs. Of the nine oldest teams here, only Pittsburgh missed, and the Penguins are greatly influenced by their trio of ancient stars.
Anecdotally, it feels like it’s getting harder to hang on as an NHLer into your late 30s. There are only two 40-year-olds in our sample (with Corey Perry becoming the third on Tuesday night for the Kings) and just 10 players leaguewide who are older than 37.
More and more, that’s becoming the age cutoff for most mortal players. Which makes what Ovechkin and Crosby are doing — continuing to produce as stars into old age — that much more impressive.
On the flip side, there have been 15 teenagers to play a game in the league this season and 56 players who are 21 or younger, so the youth movement is real. It’s hard not to watch Islanders wunderkind Matthew Schaefer, who was born in 2007, and feel a bit old.
The 10 oldest players in the NHL this season
1. Brent Burns, Colorado, 40.6 years old
2. Alex Ovechkin, Washington, 40.1
3. Jonathan Quick, New York Rangers, 39.8
4. Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh, 39.2
5. Ryan Reaves, San Jose, 38.8
6. Kris Letang, Pittsburgh, 38.5
7. Cam Talbot, Detroit, 38.3
8. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh, 38.2
9. Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles, 38.2
10. Nick Foligno, Chicago, 38.0
The 10 youngest players in the NHL this season
1. Matthew Schaefer, New York Islanders, 18.1 years old
2. Ben Kindel, Pittsburgh, 18.5
3. Brady Martin, Nashville, 18.6
4. Michael Misa, San Jose, 18.7
5. Braeden Cootes, Vancouver, 18.7
6. Jett Luchanko, Philadelphia, 19.2
7. Macklin Celebrini, San Jose, 19.4
8. Sam Dickinson, San Jose, 19.4
9. Harrison Brunicke, Pittsburgh, 19.5
10. Matvei Gridin, Calgary, 19.6
Average height of forwards: 73.0
Average height of defensemen: 74.1
Average height of goalies: 75.0
NHL average height this season: 73.5 inches (6-1.5)Â
Analysis: The Kings jumped up this list from last season, when they were ranked 10th, in part thanks to having five players who are 6-5 or taller (Samuel Helenius, Joel Edmundson, Quinton Byfield, Jeff Malott and Darcy Kuemper).
Nashville, meanwhile, has taken the short-king crown from Colorado and Seattle thanks to the fact that the Predators have more than half a roster of players who are 6-0 or shorter. Even their No. 1 goalie, Juuse Saros, is short by NHL standards at an impish 5-11, bucking a trend where the average goalie is now 6-3.
Thankfully, they have 6-6 Michael McCarron to get things off the top shelf in the dressing room.
There’s been a proliferation of big men in the league here early on, too, as last season there were only nine players who were 6-7 or taller and two of them were inexperienced goaltenders.
This year, our list of the uber tall has 13 names and none of them are in the crease. It hasn’t been enough of a trend to shift the league’s average height up, but keep an eye out for these behemoths nonetheless.
The tallest players in the NHL this season
1. Matt Rempe, New York Rangers, 81 inches (6-9)
1. Curtis Douglas, Tampa Bay, 81
3. Elmer Soderblom, Detroit, 80
3. Louis Crevier, Chicago, 80
3. Adam Klapka, Calgary, 80
3. Tyler Myers, Vancouver, 80
7. Lian Bichsel, Dallas, 79
7. Adam Edstrom, New York Rangers, 79
7. Logan Stanley, Winnipeg, 79
7. Vincent Desharnais, San Jose, 79
7. Nikita Zadorov, Boston, 79
7. Jamie Oleksiak, Seattle, 79
7. Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay, 79
The shortest players in the NHL this season
Eight listed at 5-8:
Gavin Brindley, Colorado
Logan Stankoven, Carolina
Bobby Brink, Philadelphia
Cole Caufield, Montreal
Alex DeBrincat, Detroit
Colin Blackwell, Dallas
Justin Danforth, Buffalo
Conor Sheary, New York Rangers
Plus: 18 players listed at 5-9, including Lane Hutson and Brad Marchand.
Average weight of forwards: 198.9
Average weight of defensemen: 205.0
Average weight of goalies: 201.0
NHL average weight this season: 201 poundsÂ
Analysis: Wait, Patrick Kane is listed at just 154 pounds this season? Has he been on a diet we didn’t know about?
At the other end of the (ahem) scale this season, the NHL has an impressive handful of players who weigh in at more than 250 pounds and 10 who are more than 240. That’s up from last year, so again, being really big seems to be in.
This is one stat where there’s a sizeable gap between the biggest and smallest clubs in the league, with the Maple Leafs (and others) significantly outweighing the 193-pound Predators and Canucks.
I’m not sure how much this stat actually matters, however, as the two-time defending champion Panthers are one of the lighter clubs here. The fact they are missing big men Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk does likely affect this, but Florida didn’t exactly ice a heavyweight lineup last year, either. They just play big.
The Avalanche coming in as one of the smallest clubs is interesting, given they’ll have to tangle with beefy rosters in Dallas and Vegas (among others) in the West this season. Something to keep in mind when the playoffs roll around.
The heaviest players in the NHL this season
1. Matt Rempe, New York Rangers, 261 pounds
2. Nikita Zadorov, Boston, 255
3. Jamie Oleksiak, Seattle, 252
3. Elmer Soderblom, Detroit, 252
5. Aliaksei Protas, Washington, 250
6. Anthony Stolarz, Toronto, 248
7. Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay, 244
8. Curtis Douglas, Tampa Bay, 242
9. Arber Xhekaj, Montreal, 240
9. Anthony Mantha, Pittsburgh, 240
The lightest players in the NHL this season
1. Patrick Kane, Detroit, 154 pounds
2. Lane Hutson, Montreal, 162
3. Logan Stankoven, Carolina, 165
3. Conor Garland, Vancouver, 165
5. Jared Spurgeon, Minnesota, 166
5. Dustin Wolf, Calgary, 166
7. Max Shabanov, New York Islanders, 167
8. Nikolaj Ehlers, Carolina, 168
9. Bobby Brink, Philadelphia, 169
10. Nikita Chibrikov, Winnipeg, 170
10. Samuel Girard, Colorado, 170
10. Kent Johnson, Columbus, 170
10. Lukas Reichel, Chicago, 170
Forwards: Canadian 42.7 percent, American 27.4 percent, European 29.5 percent
Defensemen: Canadian 42.5 percent, American 30.7 percent, European 26.8 percent
Goalies: Canadian 22.6 percent, American 27.4 percent, European 50 percent
NHL averages this season: Canadian 41.0 percent, American 28.5 percent, European 30.4 percent
Analysis: These numbers overall are all very close to what we saw last year, with the biggest shift continuing to happen in goal.
As we covered in detail here before the 4 Nations Face-Off, there are fewer Canadian goalies than ever, and it’s a trend that doesn’t show much sign of slowing. Only 14 Canadians have made an appearance in an NHL crease this season, many of whom are backups: Jet Greaves, Scott Wedgewood, Cam Talbot, Calvin Pickard, Stuart Skinner, Darcy Kuemper, Sam Montembeault, Jake Allen, Tristan Jarry, Jordan Binnington, Joel Hofer, Adin Hill, Eric Comrie and Logan Thompson.
Meanwhile, the percentage of NHL games played by American players has nearly doubled in the cap era, as more and more players are coming from non-traditional markets and states that haven’t typically produced high-level talent.
More than half of the NHL was Canadian as recently as 2014-15; I don’t suspect we’ll ever see anything close to that again. In fact, there could be more U.S.-born players in the league than Canadians within the next 15 years, if current trends hold.
Before we wrap up, I have one more bonus bit of info I pulled out in this analysis that looks at players’ draft position.
What round were players currently in the NHL drafted in?
First: 42.3 percent
Second: 17.1 percent
Third: 9.9 percent
Fourth: 6.5 percent
Fifth: 5.0 percent
Sixth: 3.6 percent
Seventh: 3.2 percent
Undrafted: 12.5 percent
First-round picks are obviously a huge part of building the talent base in the NHL, but as you can see above, not everything. In fact, one in eight NHLers wasn’t drafted at all, a figure that rises to one in five for goaltenders.
The chances of hitting on a late-round pick and getting an NHLer out of it are slim, however, with only about one pick in Rounds 6 and 7 sticking in the league. The NHL shortened the draft to seven rounds in 2005, so there aren’t any players left that were picked in the later rounds. But given that success rate, you wonder if they could shorten the selection process even further.
That’s all for this post this year. If you have any additional questions or suggestions for similar analysis you’d like to see in the future, feel free to drop them in the comments.