This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jacob Bryson
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Five-foot-nine and 177 pounds, the 94th percentile in bursts above 20 mph, and 0.15 even-strength points per 60 — the lowest figure at his position.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | BUF | 38 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 4.2 | 19:03 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 73 | 1 | 9 | 10 | -9 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 43 | 2.3 | 18:20 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 111 | 2 | 17 | 19 | -10 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 3.0 | 18:35 |
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
1 goal and 9 assists in 73 games — 10 points at 18:20 a night, minus-9, on 43 shots and 12 penalty minutes.
48.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,199 minutes, the 42nd percentile — the best figure of any Buffalo defenceman. His ice went 47-53 against an expectation of 44.31-47.26.
Eighteen minutes a night from a 5-9 defenceman on an NHL roster is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly. Only a handful of men at the position are that size.
The Finesse Game
0.15 even-strength points per 60 is the 0th percentile among defencemen and 1.93 shots per 60 is also the 0th. Forty-three attempts in 73 games. One goal.
Seventy per cent of his points came on the power play — which sounds impressive and means seven of ten, on a unit he barely played.
1.12 giveaways per 60 is one of the lowest rates at the position, and he makes the short pass every time. That is the whole offensive description: he does not lose the puck because he does not try anything with it.
The Physical Game
At 5-9 there is no reach and no weight, and everything he does defensively has to happen before the puck arrives. 2.47 hits per 60 at the 26th percentile and 3.27 blocks at the 20th.
The feet are why it works at all: 3.9 bursts above 20 mph per 60 is the 94th percentile among defencemen, at a 22.5 mph top speed, the 80th, with 8.76 miles per sixty at the 86th. He gets there first, and against a forward who does not have to be gotten to first, he is in trouble.
0.27 penalties taken per 60 is the 8th percentile and plus-0.22 on drawn against taken is the 94th. He does not foul, which for a small defenceman getting beaten is a genuine discipline.
The Intangibles
Ninety-ninth overall in 2017, out of Providence College, and 111 NHL games.
He is 24. A 5-9 defenceman survives on feet and anticipation and nothing else, and this one has the feet — but 10 points in 73 games means the offensive half of the small-defenceman bargain has not arrived, and without it the position is very hard to hold.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.16 penalty minutes a game over 73, 7th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“At 5-9 there is no reach and no weight, and everything he does defensively has to happen before the puck arrives”
“1.12 giveaways per 60 is one of the lowest rates at the position, and he makes the short pass every time”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,199 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.4%
- 42nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.2%
- 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: 47 for, 53 against. Expected: 44.3 and 47.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 31 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 — 51 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 · 73 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 87th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.19 a game
- Distance
- 2.68 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 88.3 mph
- 28th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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 · 1199 minutes at five-on-five
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 48.4% — 2.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,199 minutes at five-on-five — 85th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Skinner | 52.8% | 46.3% | 48.1% |
| Colin Miller | 45.3% | 49.6% | 46.8% |
| Tage Thompson | 51.6% | 47.1% | 47.3% |
52.8% together, 46.3% for him apart and 48.1% 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
48 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 58 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.