Riley Sheahan
Buffalo Sabres Center
Two penalty minutes in 69 games, 2:07 a night shorthanded at the 94th percentile, and a penalty differential at the 95th.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | DET | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 6:03 |
| 2012-13 | DET | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 6:47 |
| 2013-14 | DET | 42 | 9 | 15 | 24 | +8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 59 | 15.3 | 14:27 |
| 2014-15 | DET | 79 | 13 | 23 | 36 | -3 | 16 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 123 | 10.6 | 15:39 |
| 2015-16 | DET | 81 | 14 | 11 | 25 | -8 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 128 | 10.9 | 15:14 |
| 2016-17 | DET | 80 | 2 | 11 | 13 | -29 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 109 | 1.8 | 13:58 |
| 2017-18 | DET/PIT | 81 | 11 | 21 | 32 | +4 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 109 | 10.1 | 14:40 |
| 2018-19 | PIT/FLA | 82 | 9 | 10 | 19 | -9 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 110 | 8.2 | 13:27 |
| 2019-20 | EDM | 66 | 8 | 7 | 15 | -13 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 70 | 11.4 | 12:48 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 53 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -8 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 44 | 9.1 | 13:18 |
| 2021-22 | SEA | 69 | 4 | 13 | 17 | +6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 69 | 5.8 | 12:03 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 635 | 74 | 120 | 194 | -52 | 93 | 12 | 4 | 7 | 825 | 9.0 | 13:59 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
With Seattle. 4 goals and 13 assists in 69 games — 17 points at 12:03 a night, plus-6, on 69 shots and 2 penalty minutes.
Two penalty minutes in 69 games, and 0.07 penalties taken per 60 is the 1st percentile — almost no forward in the league takes fewer. Plus-0.72 on penalties drawn against taken is the 95th percentile.
52.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 685 minutes, the 74th percentile. His ice went 26-27 against an expectation of 25.48-22.9 — the scoring landed where the chances said and four more went in behind him than they predicted.
Plus-6 on a Seattle club that finished 30th in the league is a genuinely strange line and it comes from a fourth-line centre who never gives anything away.
The Finesse Game
4.98 shots per 60 is the 10th percentile and 5.8 per cent conversion is the 8th. Sixty-nine attempts, four goals, and 194 points in 635 career games.
1.32 even-strength points per 60 is the 20th percentile. There is no offensive case and there has not been since Detroit.
0.87 giveaways per 60 is the 10th percentile. The puck leaves quickly and correctly every time.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 214, and 1.16 hits per 60 is the 7th percentile among forwards with 2.02 blocks at the 66th. He is a large man who does not use it, and he wins his minutes by positioning.
2:07 a night shorthanded is the 94th percentile among forwards. That is the job.
Top speed 21.7 mph at the 13th percentile with 9.96 miles per sixty at the 77th. Slow and industrious.
The Intangibles
Twenty-first overall in 2010 by Detroit, and 635 games across Detroit, Pittsburgh, Florida, Edmonton, Seattle and now Buffalo.
He is 30, signed for a year. A fourth-line centre who kills two minutes a night, takes 2 penalty minutes a season and drives play on a last-place club is exactly what a young team should have on its bottom line, and Buffalo has an unusually young one.
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.03 penalty minutes a game over 69, 0th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“2:07 a night shorthanded is the 94th percentile among forwards”
“Two penalty minutes in 69 games, and 0.07 penalties taken per 60 is the 1st percentile”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 685 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.7%
- 75th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.4%
- 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: 26 for, 27 against. Expected: 25.5 and 22.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 53 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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, 2021-22 · 69 games
- Top speed
- 21.7 mph
- 31st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.88 a game
- Distance
- 2.00 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.5 mph
- 79th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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.
Usual linemates
2021-22 with SEA · 685 minutes at five-on-five
- Joonas Donskoioff the roster42%
- Ryan Donato17%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- SEA took 49.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.7% — 3.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 685 minutes at five-on-five — 30th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joonas Donskoi | 49.8% | 54.9% | 48.2% |
| Adam Larsson | 53.3% | 52.3% | 44.6% |
| Jamie Oleksiak | 49.9% | 53.9% | 51.5% |
49.8% together, 54.9% for him apart and 48.2% for Donskoi apart. He was better away from Donskoi, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Donskoi.
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
90 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.