This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Connor Clifton
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Eighty-eight penalty minutes at 196 pounds, and eighteen goals above expectation on his ice.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | BOS | 19 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +5 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 0.0 | 17:42 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 31 | 2 | 0 | 2 | +4 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 10.0 | 14:25 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 44 | 1 | 6 | 7 | +10 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 2.1 | 18:13 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 60 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -2 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80 | 2.5 | 16:04 |
| 2022-23 | BOS | 78 | 5 | 18 | 23 | +20 | 60 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 93 | 5.4 | 17:51 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 79 | 4 | 14 | 18 | +12 | 88 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 77 | 5.2 | 16:33 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 311 | 14 | 47 | 61 | +49 | 245 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 340 | 4.1 | 16:53 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
4 goals and 14 assists in 79 games — 18 points at 16:33 a night, plus-12, on 77 shots with 88 penalty minutes.
47.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,139 minutes, the 31st percentile. His ice went 62-51 against an expectation of 44.38-49.35 — eighteen goals scored above expectation in a third-pairing role, which is not a number that comes back and is the largest such gap on the roster.
The Finesse Game
77 attempts at a median of 50 feet, with 66 per cent from beyond 40 and 8 per cent from inside 20, converting at 5.19 per cent. Fourteen goals in 311 career games.
14 assists. He does not carry the puck out and the first pass is a simple one, and everything he offers happens without the puck.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 196, and he plays a great deal heavier than that. He finishes every check and he is an agitator — he talks, he gives the extra shove after the whistle, and he is the man on this blue line opponents notice.
88 penalty minutes in 79 games and 245 in 311 for his career, which is a high rate for a defenceman his size. He retaliates, and a share of the 88 is the second penalty rather than the first.
He blocks shots and he will fight men forty pounds heavier.
The Intangibles
A hundred and thirty-third overall in 2013 by Phoenix, four years at Quinnipiac, and 311 NHL games at 29 with a career plus-49.
A fifth-round pick who becomes a 300-game NHL defenceman by being the hardest man on the ice at 196 pounds has earned every one of them. On a blue line whose two best players do not punish anybody, he is the entire physical dimension.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,139 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.3%
- 32nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 48th 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: 62 for, 51 against. Expected: 44.4 and 49.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 23 points above where the numbers do. 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1139 minutes at five-on-five
- Jacob Bryson26%
- Erik Johnsonnow PHI18%
- Owen Power17%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- BUF took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.3% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,139 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Cozens | 42.0% | 49.3% | 51.3% |
| JJ Peterka | 49.5% | 46.6% | 51.4% |
| Jacob Bryson | 50.0% | 46.5% | 51.5% |
42.0% together, 49.3% for him apart and 51.3% for Cozens apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
109 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 41 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 66% from beyond forty.