This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Dylan Cozens
Buffalo Sabres Center
Sixty-eight points at twenty-two, forty-seven at twenty-three, and three shorthanded goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | BUF | 41 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -15 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 62 | 6.5 | 14:21 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 79 | 13 | 25 | 38 | -19 | 55 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 160 | 8.1 | 15:54 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 81 | 31 | 37 | 68 | -3 | 41 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 211 | 14.7 | 16:30 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 79 | 18 | 29 | 47 | -4 | 42 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 200 | 9.0 | 17:14 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 280 | 66 | 100 | 166 | -41 | 154 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 633 | 10.4 | 16:13 |
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
18 goals and 29 assists in 79 games — 47 points at 17:14 a night, minus-4, with 2 power-play goals, 3 shorthanded goals and 1 game-winner on 200 shots, converting at 9.0 per cent, and 42 penalty minutes.
He had 68 points the season before this one. Two hundred shots at 9.0 per cent is the difference: the volume held and the conversion did not.
48.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,024 minutes, the 44th percentile. His ice went 42-42 against an expectation of 44.56-46.71 — ten goals of scoring missing.
The Finesse Game
200 attempts at a median of 29 feet, with 32 per cent from inside 20 and 24 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 9.0 per cent against a career 10.43.
He takes the puck to the middle of the ice and he shoots from there, and two hundred attempts from a second-line centre is real volume. The release is heavy without being quick.
29 assists and 100 in 280 career games. He drives play through the neutral zone with the puck on his stick rather than by chipping it in, which is the half of his game that did not decline.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 205. He forechecks hard and he finishes checks, and he is one of the few forwards on this roster who plays through contact rather than around it.
42 penalty minutes in 79 games and 154 in 280 for his career is a moderate rate. He is trusted a man short and scored 3 shorthanded goals, which for a second-line centre is a real endorsement.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2019, out of Whitehorse, and 280 games and 166 points at 23 with a career minus-41.
He signed a seven-year contract after the 68-point season and produced 47. This is the single largest open question among the club’s forwards: a 68-point centre at 22 is a franchise player and a 47-point centre at 23 is a good second-liner, and the club has committed as though it is the first.
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.
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“**He drives play through the neutral zone with the puck on his stick** rather than by chipping it in, which is the half of his game that did not decline.”
“**He forechecks hard and he finishes checks**, and he is one of the few forwards on this roster who plays through contact rather than around it.”
“**He forechecks hard and he finishes checks**, and he is one of the few forwards on this roster who plays through contact rather than around it.”
“**He is trusted a man short and scored 3 shorthanded goals**, which for a second-line centre is a real endorsement.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,024 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.8%
- 45th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.4%
- 58th 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: 42 for, 42 against. Expected: 44.6 and 46.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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, 2023-24 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 88th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.56 a game
- Distance
- 2.70 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.7 mph
- 90th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 1024 minutes at five-on-five
- Zach Benson40%
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 48.8% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,024 minutes at five-on-five — 61st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| JJ Peterka | 52.9% | 44.8% | 51.5% |
| Zach Benson | 52.0% | 46.5% | 51.9% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 49.5% | 48.4% | 52.0% |
52.9% together, 44.8% for him apart and 51.5% for Peterka apart. He was worse away from Peterka, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Peterka did.
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
258 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 17 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.