This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
JJ Peterka
Buffalo Sabres Right Wing
Twenty-eight goals at twenty-two on 226 shots, and the club's second-most dangerous shooter.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | BUF | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 16:08 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 77 | 12 | 20 | 32 | -15 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 125 | 9.6 | 13:39 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 82 | 28 | 22 | 50 | +10 | 28 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 226 | 12.4 | 16:24 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 161 | 40 | 42 | 82 | -5 | 54 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 354 | 11.3 | 15:05 |
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
28 goals and 22 assists in 82 games — 50 points at 16:24 a night, plus-10, with 3 power-play goals and 5 game-winners on 226 shots, converting at 12.39 per cent, and 28 penalty minutes. He was 22.
51.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,156 minutes, the 60th percentile. His ice went 37-43 against an expectation of 49.92-48.02 — thirteen goals of scoring missing at five-on-five, on the ice of a man who scored twenty-eight.
The Finesse Game
226 attempts at a median of 29 feet, with 30 per cent from inside 20 and 18 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 12.39 per cent.
The skating is the first thing about him — he enters the zone at speed and cuts to the middle rather than driving wide, and the release comes off the rush before a goaltender has finished setting. Forty goals in 161 career games at 22.
22 assists on 50 points. He is a scorer and the passing is what happens when the shot is covered.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 189 and light. He does not forecheck with force and he does not win pucks on the wall against a defenceman, and the game is played in open ice by design.
28 penalty minutes in 82 games and 54 in 161 for his career. He does not agitate and he does not retaliate.
The Intangibles
Thirty-fourth overall in 2020, out of Munich, and 161 games and 82 points at 22.
A second-round pick who scores twenty-eight goals in his second full season is the best piece of drafting on a roster full of first-round picks, and he is one of two forwards here whose trajectory is plainly still going up.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,156 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51%
- 61st pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.4%
- 75th 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: 37 for, 43 against. Expected: 49.9 and 48.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 22 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 — 72 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 · 1156 minutes at five-on-five
- Dylan Cozens42%
- Zach Benson29%
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 51.0% — 2.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,156 minutes at five-on-five — 78th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Cozens | 52.0% | 50.1% | 45.6% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 51.0% | 50.9% | 51.2% |
| Owen Power | 52.5% | 50.1% | 46.7% |
52.0% together, 50.1% for him apart and 45.6% for Cozens apart. Cozens was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Cozens than for him.
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
316 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 30% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.