Ryan Johnson
Buffalo Sabres Defense
Fifty-two point eight per cent of the chances in a first NHL season, and no goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | BUF | 41 | 0 | 7 | 7 | +3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 0.0 | 13:52 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 41 | 0 | 7 | 7 | +3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 0.0 | 13:52 |
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
No goals and 7 assists in 41 games — 7 points at 13:52 a night, plus-3, on 35 shots with 12 penalty minutes. His first NHL season, at 22.
52.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 549 minutes, the 73rd percentile — the best mark of any defenceman on this roster. His ice went 26-21 against an expectation of 23.08-20.67.
The Finesse Game
35 attempts at a median of 54 feet, with 69 per cent from beyond 40 and 2 per cent from inside 20, and none of them scored.
Seven assists in forty-one games. The skating is why he is in the league — he retrieves under pressure and turns up ice in one motion, and the outlet is early. There is no shot and there is no offensive game to develop beyond moving the puck quickly.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 195 and light. He cannot clear his crease against a heavy forward and the defending is positional and stick-first.
12 penalty minutes in 41 games. He does not retaliate and he does not take liberties.
The Intangibles
Thirty-first overall in 2019, three years at Minnesota-Duluth, and an NHL regular at 22 on a blue line that already had a first-overall pick on each side.
Seventy-third percentile of chances in a first season is a genuinely encouraging number and it came in third-pairing minutes. He is the seventh first-round pick on this roster and there is nowhere obvious to play him.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 549 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.8%
- 73rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.4%
- 75th 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, 21 against. Expected: 23.1 and 20.7.
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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 57 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 · 549 minutes at five-on-five
- Owen Power19%
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 52.8% — 3.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 549 minutes at five-on-five — 21st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Clifton | 52.2% | 53.1% | 46.4% |
| JJ Peterka | 55.2% | 51.8% | 50.4% |
| Kyle Okposo | 51.5% | 53.3% | 47.4% |
52.2% together, 53.1% for him apart and 46.4% for Clifton apart. Clifton was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Clifton 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
54 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.