This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Rasmus Dahlin
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Seventy-three points at twenty-three, 3.80 miles a game — the most of any skater in the league — and the 16th percentile in top speed.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | BUF | 82 | 9 | 35 | 44 | -13 | 34 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 177 | 5.1 | 21:09 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 59 | 4 | 36 | 40 | -7 | 38 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 90 | 4.4 | 19:18 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 56 | 5 | 18 | 23 | -36 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 115 | 4.3 | 21:36 |
| 2021-22 | BUF | 80 | 13 | 40 | 53 | -22 | 68 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 170 | 7.6 | 24:01 |
| 2022-23 | BUF | 78 | 15 | 58 | 73 | +12 | 92 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 204 | 7.3 | 25:48 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 355 | 46 | 187 | 233 | -66 | 258 | 17 | 0 | 10 | 756 | 6.1 | 22:35 |
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
15 goals and 58 assists in 78 games — 73 points at 25:48 a night, plus-12, with 6 power-play goals on 204 shots and 92 penalty minutes.
Seventy-three points is the most by a Buffalo defenceman since Phil Housley, and 25:48 was the fourth-heaviest workload in the league. 53.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,561 minutes, the 78th percentile — on a club that finished 26th in goals against. His ice went 82-71 against an expectation of 76.04-65.92.
The Finesse Game
204 attempts at a median of 48 feet, 62 per cent from beyond 40, off a shot measured at 98.2 mph — the 92nd percentile. Fifteen goals from that distance is a good return and it is the power play doing most of it.
187 career assists in 355 games is the real skill, and it is not a point-shot game: he leaves his own zone with the puck, he beats the first forechecker himself, and the club’s entire breakout is built on the assumption that he will.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 204, and 92 penalty minutes says he is not passive — he finishes checks and he has an edge that his reputation as a skill defenceman tends to hide.
The tracking says something specific and worth stopping on. He covered 3.80 miles a game, which is the 100th percentile — the most of any skater in the league. His top speed was 21.6 mph, the 16th percentile. Those two numbers together are the clearest statement in this book of what the feed does and does not see: it can tell you he never stops moving and it cannot tell you anything about the part of his skating that beats people. Whatever makes him the best skater on this roster, straight-line speed is demonstrably not it.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2018, five seasons, 355 games and 233 points at twenty-three, and the captaincy of a club that has not made the playoffs in twelve years.
He is the reason to watch Buffalo. The uncomfortable half is that his best season coincided with the club conceding 300 goals, and a defenceman who plays 26 minutes on a team with the 30th-ranked penalty kill is going to be blamed for some of it whether or not it is his.
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.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
6 of 161 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 3.7%, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
53.6% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 47.4% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.2, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
20:01 a game at five-on-five, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“he leaves his own zone with the puck, he beats the first forechecker himself, and the club's entire breakout is built on the assumption that he will”
“He is the reason to watch Buffalo.”
“he finishes checks and he has an edge that his reputation as a skill defenceman tends to hide”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,561 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.6%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.5%
- 82nd 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: 82 for, 71 against. Expected: 76.0 and 65.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 19 points of one another. 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.
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 — 80 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 · 1561 minutes at five-on-five
- Owen Power15%
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 53.6% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,561 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mattias Samuelsson | 50.0% | 56.4% | 48.7% |
| Jeff Skinner | 55.7% | 52.3% | 49.8% |
| Tage Thompson | 54.7% | 52.9% | 47.7% |
50.0% together, 56.4% for him apart and 48.7% for Samuelsson apart. He was better away from Samuelsson, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Samuelsson.
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
260 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 13% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.