Noah Ostlund
Buffalo Sabres Center
11 goals on 60 shots, and the underlying numbers of a player who belongs.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | BUF | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 10:33 |
| 2025-26 | BUF | 60 | 11 | 16 | 27 | +11 | 14 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 60 | 18.3 | 13:58 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 68 | 11 | 16 | 27 | +5 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 17.2 | 13:34 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 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 16 assists in 60 games — 27 points, plus-11, at 13:58 a night. His first real NHL season, at 21.
The Finesse Game
Quick, clever and light. The skating is the best part — he is elusive in small spaces rather than fast in open ice — and the passing is a step ahead of the finishing.
The 11 goals came from 60 shots, which is 18.3 per cent and will not hold. The location is fair without being brave: 36 per cent of his attempts inside 20 feet, median 26. Expect six or seven from the same process next time and judge him on the assists.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 180 pounds, and there is nothing here yet. 14 penalty minutes in 60 games. He is removed from pucks by men who simply weigh more, and on a fourth line that is where a lot of shifts are decided.
2 summers in a weight room is the standard answer and it has not happened yet.
The Intangibles
The encouraging part is that the process was good, not just the scoring: 53.4 per cent of the expected goals, 79th percentile, in 756 minutes, with the expected goals 30.1 to 26.3 in his favour.
He was the sixteenth pick in 2022 and there was a stretch where it looked like a reach. 7 points in his last 10. He is 22 and this is a real NHL player, probably a third-line one, with the ceiling depending entirely on what he can add physically.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 756 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.4%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.2%
- 68th 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: 34 for, 22 against. Expected: 30.1 and 26.3.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe numbers rank him 52 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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, 2025-26 · 60 games
- Top speed
- 21.9 mph
- 32nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.75 a game
- Distance
- 2.34 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.3 mph
- 66th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.6
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.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
7
points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 6 assists, 12 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 756 minutes at five-on-five
- Josh Norris36%
- Josh Doan36%
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, 2025-26
- The club
- BUF took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 2.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 756 minutes at five-on-five — 35th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owen Power | 54.4% | 52.7% | 49.5% |
| Josh Doan | 54.4% | 52.8% | 54.7% |
| Bowen Byram | 52.6% | 53.9% | 48.6% |
54.4% together, 52.7% for him apart and 49.5% for Power apart. Power was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Power 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
91 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.