A harsh truth within the industry is that it’s simply impossible to keep a pulse of every team in the NHL.
No one has the time or endurance to watch 1,312 regular season games per season.
The best we can do is watch what we can and trust the opinions of others who have their own market to cover and fanbase to engage with.
A firm or weak record over any given span can imply that the team is playing well. How they’re finding success is a deeper question that is more or less left to the viewer. One of the great innovations coming out of the age of social media is that everyone gets a platform. Right or wrong, everyone gets a voice if they want it.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at one topic that has made some fascinating scientific progress since the beginning of 2021-2022: individual and collective team speed.
With the introduction of NHL Edge three and a half seasons ago, the public has been able to access the season stats of their favorite players and, of course, their team. As much as most journalists and reporters would like to lean towards impartial coverage, most of us have one.
It’s been a strange ride for NHL Edge.
As time goes on, the speed and shot metrics section of nhl.com has found itself buried under this or that. The website has come a long way and has an abundance of content. It should be no surprise that cumulative totals such as those found in NHL Edge are hard to follow. Unless you keep a close watch, it’s hard to tell how a player is doing recently compared to the rest of the season.
Are they skating faster? Slower? Would information like that affect an organization’s ability to trade player X? Would player Y have to worry about being targeted next game if fans were clamoring about his recent inability to get above 18 mph?
Surely, most teams manage their own database or at least take their own notes. There is no need for Bill from Red Deer or Jack from Mississauga to know exactly who is the fastest or the slowest in November, who took the most exaggerated dip, and who experienced the most meteoric rise.
But that stuff
is interesting.
The NHL is in a weird place when it comes to capturing the drama of the NHL experience for players. Camera crews, and later the public, are given access to harsh moments. As much as we all love to hate this team or love to love that team, there is a case to be made that locker room speeches during the playoffs should stay in the room.
Those are moments that should be private. The players and the staff–and, of course, their spouses after the fact. Letting everyone in waters down the experience but indeed provides much-needed exposure for a league competing for screen time with the UFC, MLB, NBA, and NFL.
With that said, we have NHL Edge tucked soundly into the National Hockey League website. That data is always waiting to be enjoyed, so let's take a ride through what we have there, just waiting to be compiled.
A Compilation
Have you ever wondered exactly where your team ranks in terms of speed?
A loaded question. For one, forward speed and quickness are two very different things.
Mitch Marner has 16 goals and 55 assists for 71 points in 54 games in 2024-2025. His speed metrics are below average. Despite averaging 21:33 a night, he finds his speed burst totals barely over the 50th percentile.
Tied for points with Marner is Connor McDavid. Arguably the highest-octane skater on the planet.
This isn’t meant to rip on Mitch. One of the coolest factors of enjoying hockey at all levels is that each player carries an identity to how they play, and when it comes to putting up numbers, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Being the quickest to the puck is far more conducive to success than hitting a high top speed. The game is made up of far more puck races than neutral zone burn-throughs.
Hitting high top speeds frequently can also mean that the player is getting caught running around a little too often. Maybe they are a player that is tasked with protecting the middle of a 1-3-1, 1-2-2, or 0-2-3. That means keeping up with whoever is flying out of the breakout.
We can discuss different reasons a player needs to hit a high velocity on the ice until the cows come home, but the point is to say that high speeds are a double-edged sword.
Used properly, though? It’s a game plan.
A strategy going down to the lowest levels of Peewee. Beat the guy to the outside and make a play with the space you’ve made. The league has a finite amount of burners and the best can read a play at the same time.
Let’s take a look at where each team ranks in the NHL when it comes to hitting high levels of speed.
Apologies to the teams at the top, but it’s easier to read going from slowest to fastest.
It’s so fun to see high-placing teams at both the top and bottom of this graph. Like their players, each team has an identity; a strategy to leave the building with two more points in the standings.
Florida, who loves to dump the puck in and smash their opponents, is better served having one player trail the puck and another hover to support the puck in the case of chaos. You don’t exactly need Mach speed to line up the first man on the puck; especially when you or your teammate decides where the dump-in goes.
Colorado and Edmonton opt for deadly transition. A stroke of luck amid the chaos and they have the tools to generate a high percentage opportunity.
We also find a mix of successful and unsuccessful teams in the mushy middle. Not every team has a dedicated multi-line threat of neutral zone burners. Other teams lack the puck support or ability to make transition plays that get said burners the puck at the right time. Building a winning strategy out of hardline speed is often too rigid for the chaos of hockey.
Oscar Wilde once wrote that “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
What we do know is that data like what we get from NHL Edge is enjoyable because it opens the door to more questions.
And after all of those questions have been tried out, who doesn’t want to know whether
their team is the fastest in the NHL?
Congrats, Colorado fans.
Stats via nhl.com and NHL Edge. 
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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