This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Owen Power
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Six foot six, first overall, plus-eight at twenty-one — and fifty-nine assists in 163 games.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | BUF | 8 | 2 | 1 | 3 | +3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 20.0 | 22:05 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 79 | 4 | 31 | 35 | +10 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 130 | 3.1 | 23:48 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 76 | 6 | 27 | 33 | +8 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 108 | 5.6 | 22:55 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 163 | 12 | 59 | 71 | +21 | 54 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 248 | 4.8 | 23:18 |
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
6 goals and 27 assists in 76 games — 33 points at 22:55 a night, plus-8, on 108 shots at 5.56 per cent with 28 penalty minutes. He was 21.
48.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,431 minutes, the 40th percentile. His ice went 47-47 against an expectation of 55.78-59.26 — nine goals of scoring missing and eleven fewer conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
108 attempts at a median of 42 feet, with 53 per cent from beyond 40 and 11 per cent from inside 20, converting at 5.56 per cent. Twelve goals in 163 career games; the shot is not the reason he plays.
The first pass is early and to the correct side of the ice, and it is the best thing he does. He will carry it out when the pass is not there and the skating is genuinely good for 6-6, but the default is to move it before the forecheck arrives. Fifty-nine assists in 163 career games.
The Physical Game
6-6 and 226, and he defends the rush with reach almost nobody gets around — the stick arrives before the body does and the puck carrier runs out of ice on the outside.
He does not punish anybody and he does not clear his crease by force, which for a man this size is a real omission rather than a stylistic one. 28 penalty minutes in 76 games and 54 in 163 for his career is one of the lowest rates of any defenceman playing these minutes.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2021, out of Michigan, and an NHL regular at 19 who was playing twenty-three minutes a night at 21.
He and Rasmus Dahlin are the only pair of first-overall picks on any roster in this edition who are both defencemen. He is 21 and plus-8 on a club that finished twenty-second, and the question is whether a 6-6 defenceman who does not use the body ever becomes a true number one or stays what he is now, which is a very good second.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,431 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.5%
- 41st pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.5%
- 69th 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: 47 for, 47 against. Expected: 55.8 and 59.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 24 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 — 67 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 · 1431 minutes at five-on-five
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 48.5% — 0.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,431 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henri Jokiharju | 42.6% | 51.9% | 49.2% |
| JJ Peterka | 52.5% | 46.7% | 50.1% |
| Alex Tuch | 48.2% | 48.6% | 51.0% |
42.6% together, 51.9% for him apart and 49.2% for Jokiharju apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
159 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 53% from beyond forty.