This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Michael Kesselring
Buffalo Sabres Defense
29 points and 89 penalty minutes from a 6-5 right shot, and the larger half of the JJ Peterka trade.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | ARI | 9 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0 | 17:06 |
| 2023-24 | ARI | 65 | 5 | 16 | 21 | +11 | 66 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 76 | 6.6 | 15:48 |
| 2024-25 | UTA | 82 | 7 | 22 | 29 | +4 | 89 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 150 | 4.7 | 17:41 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 156 | 12 | 41 | 53 | +14 | 161 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 234 | 5.1 | 16:52 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
7 goals and 22 assists in 82 games for 29 points, plus-4, on 17:41 a night with Utah and 150 shots.
82 games in a second-pair role, and 150 shots from a defenceman is a genuine volume. A plus rating on a club that missed the playoffs is worth something.
The Finesse Game
More offence than the frame suggests. He shoots often and the release is decent, and 22 assists is a fair return for a defenceman who is not running a power play.
The first pass is adequate rather than quick, and under a hard forecheck he will go to the boards rather than attempt the play up the middle. That is the correct decision for what he is.
The Physical Game
6-5 and 215, and this is why Buffalo wanted him. He clears the front of the net, ends board battles by arriving, and is willing to take a run at somebody.
89 penalty minutes is a high total and it is a genuine cost on a club whose kill is already busy. It is also the reason the club traded for him: the blue line had Dahlin, Power and Byram, and none of the three plays this way.
The Intangibles
A sixth-round pick who took the college route, was traded as a minor piece, and became a full-time NHL defenceman at 24.
He is the larger half of the return for a 28-goal winger, which is a difficult standard. The honest projection is a solid second-pair right shot with size, which Buffalo genuinely needed and did not have.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,263 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.4%
- 82nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 54.1%
- 88th 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: 57 for, 57 against. Expected: 57.1 and 49.8.
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 337 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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
2024-25 with UTA · 1263 minutes at five-on-five
- Ian Cole51%
- Mikhail Sergachev16%
- Juuso Välimäkioff the roster10%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- UTA took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,263 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ian Cole | 54.1% | 52.6% | 52.7% |
| Clayton Keller | 52.9% | 53.7% | 51.9% |
| Nick Schmaltz | 52.2% | 54.0% | 53.0% |
54.1% together, 52.6% for him apart and 52.7% for Cole 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
221 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 37 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.