This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Alex Tuch
Buffalo Sabres Right Wing
Thirty-eight points in 50 games after arriving in the Eichel trade, with 2.61 takeaways per 60 and 3.19 blocks — both in the 95th percentile for a forward.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | MIN | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0 | 10:42 |
| 2017-18 | VGK | 78 | 15 | 22 | 37 | +3 | 27 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 171 | 8.8 | 15:15 |
| 2018-19 | VGK | 74 | 20 | 32 | 52 | +13 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 180 | 11.1 | 16:44 |
| 2019-20 | VGK | 42 | 8 | 9 | 17 | -10 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 98 | 8.2 | 14:37 |
| 2020-21 | VGK | 55 | 18 | 15 | 33 | +16 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 142 | 12.7 | 16:50 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 50 | 12 | 26 | 38 | -3 | 14 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 139 | 8.6 | 18:25 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 305 | 73 | 104 | 177 | +16 | 85 | 14 | 1 | 15 | 738 | 9.9 | 16:14 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
12 goals and 26 assists in 50 games — 38 points at 18:25 a night, minus-3, with 2 power-play goals and 1 shorthanded on 139 shots and 14 penalty minutes.
Thirty-eight points in fifty games, after missing the first half of the season recovering from shoulder surgery. Over 82 games that is a 62-point pace.
52.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 688 minutes, the 70th percentile — the best figure of any Buffalo forward. His ice went 43-39 against an expectation of 31.35-28.98: twelve goals of scoring above what the chances predicted and ten more conceded than they did.
2.61 takeaways per 60 is the 96th percentile among forwards and 3.19 blocks per 60 is the 95th percentile among forwards, which for a top-six winger is close to unheard of.
The Finesse Game
139 attempts at a median of 28 feet with 42 per cent from inside the slot, converting at 8.6 per cent — the 25th percentile. 9.06 shots per 60 at the 78th percentile and 26 assists in 50 games says the volume and the vision are both real and the finish was not.
2.47 even-strength points per 60 is the 81st percentile. He is a genuine first-line winger by production per minute, which on this roster is not a crowded distinction.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 219, and the contact record is oddly light — 2.09 hits per 60 at the 22nd percentile. He defends with position and stick rather than weight, which the blocks bear out.
9.1 bursts above 20 mph per 60 is the 84th percentile at 6-4, off a 22.7 mph top speed at the 71st and 3.04 miles a game. A man that size who accelerates that often changes what a defence can do on a rush.
The Intangibles
Eighteenth overall in 2014 by Minnesota, four seasons in Vegas including the 2018 Cup final, and traded to Buffalo in the Jack Eichel deal at twenty-five.
He is 26, signed through 2026. Buffalo got a first-round pick, a second, Peyton Krebs and Tuch for Eichel, and after one season the honest verdict is that Tuch was the piece. A 6-4 winger who takes pucks away at the 96th percentile and blocks shots at the 95th is the sort of player good clubs build second lines around, and Buffalo has him for four more years.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
52.0% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 45.0% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.0, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“2.61 takeaways per 60 is the 96th percentile among forwards”
“3.19 blocks per 60 is the 95th percentile among forwards, which for a top-six winger is close to unheard of”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 688 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52%
- 70th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.6%
- 70th 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: 43 for, 39 against. Expected: 31.4 and 29.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 17 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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, 2021-22 · 50 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 81st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.78 a game
- Distance
- 3.04 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.7 mph
- 76th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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
2021-22 · 688 minutes at five-on-five
- Jeff Skinner67%
- Peyton Krebs15%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- BUF took 46.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.0% — 5.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 688 minutes at five-on-five — 31st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Skinner | 53.9% | 45.9% | 46.1% |
| Tage Thompson | 52.7% | 49.8% | 44.9% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 53.0% | 50.9% | 44.2% |
53.9% together, 45.9% for him apart and 46.1% for Skinner apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
186 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 31% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.