This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Rasmus Dahlin
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Twenty-five twenty-five a night at twenty-four, fifty-nine points, and the largest single source of offence on the club.
| 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 | BUF | 81 | 20 | 39 | 59 | -3 | 66 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 235 | 8.5 | 25:25 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 436 | 66 | 226 | 292 | -69 | 324 | 23 | 0 | 12 | 991 | 6.7 | 23:06 |
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
20 goals and 39 assists in 81 games — 59 points at 25:25 a night, minus-3, with 6 power-play goals and 2 game-winners on 235 shots at 8.51 per cent, and 66 penalty minutes.
Twenty goals from the blue line, and 39 assists is the largest single source of offence on this roster.
51.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,637 minutes, the 63rd percentile — more ice than anybody on the club by two hundred minutes. His ice went 59-55 against an expectation of 72.60-69.32 — thirteen goals of scoring missing on the ice of the man who scored 59 points himself, and fourteen fewer conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
235 attempts at a median of 50 feet, with 68 per cent from beyond 40 and 7 per cent from inside 20, converting at 8.51 per cent — which is a very high rate from that distance and the reason for twenty goals.
He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and the skating is the reason 25:25 a night is possible at all. He gains the offensive line under control against a forecheck and he will walk into the middle of the ice rather than settle for the point.
He walks the line and holds the puck until a forechecker commits, which is the whole of the power play. 226 assists in 436 career games.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 204 and light for the minutes. He does not clear the front of his own net by force and he does not punish anybody, and the defending is done with skating and stick position.
324 penalty minutes in 436 games is a low rate for a defenceman taking this ice. He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2018 and 436 games, 292 points and a career minus-69, all of them here, on clubs that have not made the playoffs in any of them.
He is 24 and is the captain. He has played 25:25 a night for a team that finished twenty-second, and the minus-69 belongs to the eighty-two games around him — the club’s problem is a power play ranked twenty-ninth, not the man running it.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,637 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.2%
- 62nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.7%
- 83rd 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: 59 for, 55 against. Expected: 72.6 and 69.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 34 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 — 78 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 · 1637 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, 2023-24
- The club
- BUF took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.2% — 2.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,637 minutes at five-on-five — 100th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Tuch | 51.7% | 50.9% | 48.4% |
| Henri Jokiharju | 53.2% | 50.2% | 42.1% |
| JJ Peterka | 51.0% | 51.2% | 50.9% |
51.7% together, 50.9% for him apart and 48.4% for Tuch apart. Tuch was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Tuch 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
321 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 41 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.