Anders Bjork

A 40.0 per cent chance share — the lowest on the roster — off an 80.9 mph shot at the 2nd percentile.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2017-18	BOS	30	4	8	12	+2	6	2	0	0	30	13.3	12:21
2018-19	BOS	20	1	2	3	-1	2	0	0	0	18	5.6	11:48
2019-20	BOS	58	9	10	19	+5	10	1	0	0	66	13.6	12:56
2020-21	BOS/BUF	45	5	6	11	-13	14	0	0	0	41	12.2	13:53
2021-22	BUF	58	5	3	8	-14	10	0	0	0	51	9.8	12:02
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	211	24	29	53	-21	42	3	0	0	206	11.7	12:42

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

5 goals and 3 assists in 58 games — 8 points at 12:02 a night, minus-14, on 51 shots and 10 penalty minutes.

40.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 680 minutes — the lowest figure of any Buffalo skater. His ice went 16-28 against an expectation of 17.3-25.96: a goal of scoring missing and two more conceded than the chances predicted.

Sixteen goals for in 680 minutes. 37.9 per cent of his even-strength time was spent in the offensive zone, the 3rd percentile among forwards.

The Finesse Game

0.73 even-strength points per 60 is the 2nd percentile among the league’s forwards and 4.38 shots per 60 is the 4th. Fifty-one attempts in 58 games and eight points.

The shot leaves at 80.9 mph, the 2nd percentile of velocity. For a winger whose case was always skill rather than size, that is close to disqualifying, and five goals in 58 games is what it produces.

53 points in 211 career games.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 190, and 0.95 hits per 60 is the 5th percentile among forwards with 1.38 blocks at the 35th. There is nothing here.

The one genuinely good number is the engine: 10.18 miles per sixty is the 91st percentile among forwards and he works harder than the results suggest, at a 22.3 mph top speed, the 43rd. He is not lazy and he is not slow. He simply cannot do anything with the puck when he gets to it.

The Intangibles

One hundred and forty-sixth overall in 2014 by Boston, out of Notre Dame, traded to Buffalo in 2021 for Taylor Hall, and 211 NHL games across the two.

He is 26. Two organisations have now given him a hundred games apiece to establish that there is a top-nine forward in there, and the measured record after five seasons is the lowest chance share on a last-place team. This is likely the final season anybody asks the question.

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
ordinaryraised, and called ordinary

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
29.0% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 91st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
transitionpresent and ordinary· carries it out; gains the line under control
“10.18 miles per sixty is the 91st percentile among forwards and he works harder than the results suggest”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 680 minutes

Expected goals: 40%; 3rd pct
Shot attempts: 43.4%; 7th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 16 for, 28 against. Expected: 17.3 and 26.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

3rd

Numbers

3rd

The two rank him within 0 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 — 46 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 · 58 games

Top speed: 22.3 mph; 58th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.98 a game
Distance: 2.04 miles a game
Hardest shot: 80.9 mph; 24th pct

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 · 680 minutes at five-on-five

John Haydennow SEA53%
Cody Eakinoff the roster37%
Arttu Ruotsalainenoff the roster24%

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 40.0% — 6.3 below the club he did it on.
The role: 680 minutes at five-on-five — 30th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
John Hayden	39.0%	40.8%	44.1%
Cody Eakin	35.2%	42.2%	42.6%
Rasmus Dahlin	45.5%	37.2%	46.5%

39.0% together, 40.8% for him apart and 44.1% for Hayden apart. Hayden was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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

62 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 27% from beyond forty.