This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Casey Mittelstadt
Buffalo Sabres Center
Eighth overall in 2017, 80 points in 195 games, and a 21.2 mph top speed at the 3rd percentile.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | BUF | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | +1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 11.1 | 14:01 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 77 | 12 | 13 | 25 | -19 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 118 | 10.2 | 13:27 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 31 | 4 | 5 | 9 | -5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 34 | 11.8 | 12:46 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 41 | 10 | 12 | 22 | -10 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 61 | 16.4 | 15:53 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 40 | 6 | 13 | 19 | -14 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 7.6 | 16:07 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 195 | 33 | 47 | 80 | -47 | 28 | 9 | 1 | 5 | 301 | 11.0 | 14:25 |
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
6 goals and 13 assists in 40 games — 19 points at 16:07 a night, minus-14, with 1 power-play goal on 79 shots and 4 penalty minutes.
Forty games, and 195 across five seasons since being taken eighth overall.
47.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 508 minutes, the 31st percentile. His ice went 18-25 against an expectation of 19.79-22.28.
The Finesse Game
79 attempts at a median of 29 feet, converting at 7.6 per cent — the 17th percentile — off an 83.5 mph release at the 9th. The shot is among the softest of any forward in this book and it has been the same story since he arrived.
13 assists against 6 goals and 37 per cent of his points on the power play, the 93rd percentile. 1.38 even-strength points per 60 is the 25th percentile, which is the number that matters and is the reason the ice time keeps moving.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 205, and 1.77 hits per 60 at the 16th percentile with 1.12 blocks at the 20th. Four penalty minutes in 40 games.
The skating is the problem and the tracking is blunt about it: 21.2 mph top speed is the 3rd percentile among the league’s forwards and 1.5 bursts above 20 mph per 60 is the 6th. A skill centre who cannot separate has to make everything happen in traffic, and he is not strong enough to.
He drew 0.28 penalties per 60, the 4th percentile. Nobody has to foul him.
The Intangibles
Eighth overall in 2017, out of Minnesota, and five seasons for 80 points.
He is 23. Buffalo now has Thompson, Cozens and Krebs at centre and a first-overall defenceman on the way, and Mittelstadt is the pick from the era before all of them — the ice time is not going to be handed to him again, and at 23 the window for a top-ten selection to establish what he is has almost closed.
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
31.6% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.10 penalty minutes a game over 40, 3rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“13 assists against 6 goals and 37 per cent of his points on the power play, the 93rd percentile”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 508 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47%
- 32nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.9%
- 44th 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: 18 for, 25 against. Expected: 19.8 and 22.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 26 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
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 — 48 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 · 40 games
- Top speed
- 21.2 mph
- 18th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.40 a game
- Distance
- 2.59 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 83.5 mph
- 32nd 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 · 508 minutes at five-on-five
- Kyle Okposo21%
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 47.0% — 0.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 508 minutes at five-on-five — 19th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victor Olofsson | 46.3% | 47.7% | 46.2% |
| Rasmus Asplund | 53.9% | 41.6% | 50.4% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 48.3% | 46.3% | 46.1% |
46.3% together, 47.7% for him apart and 46.2% for Olofsson apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
98 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.