Kyle Okposo
Buffalo Sabres Right Wing
Nine hundred and eighty-four games, a captaincy, and the 97th percentile in top speed at thirty-five.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | NYI | 9 | 2 | 3 | 5 | +3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 13.3 | 16:28 |
| 2008-09 | NYI | 65 | 18 | 21 | 39 | -6 | 36 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 165 | 10.9 | 18:01 |
| 2009-10 | NYI | 80 | 19 | 33 | 52 | -22 | 34 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 249 | 7.6 | 20:32 |
| 2010-11 | NYI | 38 | 5 | 15 | 20 | +3 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 72 | 6.9 | 16:35 |
| 2011-12 | NYI | 79 | 24 | 21 | 45 | -15 | 46 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 152 | 15.8 | 17:04 |
| 2012-13 | NYI | 48 | 4 | 20 | 24 | -2 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 101 | 4.0 | 16:57 |
| 2013-14 | NYI | 71 | 27 | 42 | 69 | -9 | 51 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 195 | 13.9 | 20:26 |
| 2014-15 | NYI | 60 | 18 | 33 | 51 | -8 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 195 | 9.2 | 19:33 |
| 2015-16 | NYI | 79 | 22 | 42 | 64 | -4 | 51 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 202 | 10.9 | 18:12 |
| 2016-17 | BUF | 65 | 19 | 26 | 45 | -7 | 24 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 156 | 12.2 | 18:58 |
| 2017-18 | BUF | 76 | 15 | 29 | 44 | -34 | 40 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 161 | 9.3 | 17:02 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 78 | 14 | 15 | 29 | -9 | 41 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 147 | 9.5 | 13:47 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 52 | 9 | 10 | 19 | -3 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 82 | 11.0 | 12:51 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 35 | 2 | 11 | 13 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 45 | 4.4 | 13:53 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 74 | 21 | 24 | 45 | -15 | 43 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 174 | 12.1 | 16:47 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 75 | 11 | 17 | 28 | -7 | 34 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 150 | 7.3 | 14:40 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 984 | 230 | 362 | 592 | -136 | 520 | 65 | 4 | 34 | 2261 | 10.2 | 17:11 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
11 goals and 17 assists in 75 games — 28 points at 14:40 a night, minus-7, with a shorthanded goal on 150 shots, converting at 7.33 per cent, and 34 penalty minutes.
49.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 953 minutes, the 48th percentile. His ice went 28-33 against an expectation of 35.6-36.12 — eight goals of scoring missing, which is the largest offensive shortfall among the forwards and is mostly a third line with no finisher on it.
The Finesse Game
150 attempts at a median of 31 feet, 32 per cent from inside 20 and 33 per cent from beyond 40, off an 86.1 mph shot at the 16th percentile.
230 goals and 592 points in 984 games is a very good career, and the scoring half of it finished some years ago — 11 goals on 150 shots is a 7.3 per cent conversion and it is the third straight season around that mark.
What is left is a winger who makes the correct play, protects the puck on the wall and does not cost his line anything.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 216, and the tracking contains the most surprising number on this roster: 23.5 mph top speed at thirty-five, the 97th percentile in the league. He is one of the fastest men in hockey and he is not a fast player, because 0.5 bursts over twenty miles an hour a game is the 26th percentile — the top end is intact and he almost never goes there. That is what a veteran managing a body looks like in tracking data.
520 penalty minutes in 984 games. He still finishes checks and he is not easy to play against.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2006, sixteen seasons, and he has been the captain here through a decade of losing that would have broken most people.
He has a documented concussion history serious enough to have threatened the career, and he came back from it to play 75 games at thirty-five. He is 35. The value now is almost entirely in the room, and on a club with eight forwards under twenty-five that is not a small job — but it is not a hockey reason to dress him, and Buffalo will have to say so out loud within a year.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
34.4% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
3 of 64 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.7%, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
“he has been the captain here through a decade of losing that would have broken most people”
“What is left is a winger who makes the correct play, protects the puck on the wall and does not cost his line anything.”
“He still finishes checks and he is not easy to play against.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 953 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.6%
- 49th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.6%
- 76th 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: 28 for, 33 against. Expected: 35.6 and 36.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 30 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 120 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 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
2022-23 · 953 minutes at five-on-five
- Peyton Krebs52%
- Tyson Jost22%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- BUF took 49.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.6% — 0.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 953 minutes at five-on-five — 53rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zemgus Girgensons | 49.8% | 49.1% | 47.0% |
| Peyton Krebs | 47.5% | 51.7% | 45.8% |
| Owen Power | 51.0% | 48.8% | 49.0% |
49.8% together, 49.1% for him apart and 47.0% for Girgensons 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
186 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 33% from beyond forty.