This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jacob Bryson
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Five foot nine and 177 pounds, four goals in 206 games, and thirty-three for against sixteen on his ice.
| 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 | BUF | 59 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -24 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 3.7 | 14:35 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 36 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 6.7 | 14:41 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 206 | 4 | 32 | 36 | -29 | 40 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 109 | 3.7 | 16:45 |
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
1 goal and 7 assists in 36 games — 8 points at 14:41 a night, plus-5, on 15 shots with 8 penalty minutes.
49.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 487 minutes, the 48th percentile. His ice went 17-14 against an expectation of 18.33-18.80 — a goal below expectation at one end and five fewer conceded than the chances called for at the other, in 487 minutes, which is noise and is also the best goal differential on the roster.
The Finesse Game
15 attempts at a median of 52 feet, with 82 per cent from beyond 40 feet and not one from inside 20. Four goals in 206 NHL games.
Seven assists. The skating is the whole player — he escapes a forecheck by turning rather than by throwing the puck away, and the first pass is quick. There is no shot to speak of and he does not join the rush.
The Physical Game
5-9 and 177, and he is the smallest defenceman in this edition’s Atlantic Division. He cannot clear his crease, he cannot win a battle in the corner against a forward, and the defending is entirely feet and stick.
8 penalty minutes in 36 games and 40 in 206 for his career — he does not foul, because he is beaten cleanly rather than being forced into a hook.
The Intangibles
Ninety-ninth overall in 2017, four years at Providence, and 206 NHL games at 26 with a career minus-29.
He is a seventh defenceman on a club with eight. A 5-9 defenceman survives at this level by never being in the wrong place, and he mostly is not — the ceiling is what he is already doing and the margin for a bad night is smaller for him than for anybody on the roster.
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.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- 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.
“**The skating is the whole player** — he escapes a forecheck by turning rather than by throwing the puck away, and the first pass is quick.”
“**He cannot clear his crease, he cannot win a battle in the corner against a forward, and the defending is entirely feet and stick.**”
“**He cannot clear his crease, he cannot win a battle in the corner against a forward, and the defending is entirely feet and stick.**”
“**5-9 and 177, and he is the smallest defenceman in this edition's Atlantic Division.**”
“**8 penalty minutes in 36 games and 40 in 206 for his career** — he does not foul, because he is beaten cleanly rather than being forced into a hook.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 487 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.4%
- 48th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48%
- 35th 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: 17 for, 14 against. Expected: 18.3 and 18.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 44 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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 · 36 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 87th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.50 a game
- Distance
- 2.03 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 80.9 mph
- 11th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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 · 487 minutes at five-on-five
- Owen Power15%
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 49.4% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 487 minutes at five-on-five — 17th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Clifton | 48.9% | 50.1% | 46.1% |
| JJ Peterka | 62.5% | 44.0% | 50.9% |
| Alex Tuch | 55.7% | 47.0% | 49.9% |
48.9% together, 50.1% for him apart and 46.1% for Clifton 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
22 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 82% from beyond forty.