This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zach Benson
Buffalo Sabres Left Wing
Five foot ten and 177 pounds at nineteen, and fifty-eight per cent of his shots from inside twenty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | BUF | 71 | 11 | 19 | 30 | -3 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 98 | 11.2 | 14:31 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 71 | 11 | 19 | 30 | -3 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 98 | 11.2 | 14:31 |
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
11 goals and 19 assists in 71 games — 30 points at 14:31 a night, minus-3, on 98 shots, converting at 11.22 per cent, with 36 penalty minutes. He was 19 and went straight from junior to the NHL.
52.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 907 minutes, the 68th percentile — the best mark of any forward on this roster who was here. His ice went 35-38 against an expectation of 39.22-36.27.
The Finesse Game
98 attempts at a median of 16 feet, with 58 per cent from inside 20 and 12 per cent from beyond 40 — the most net-front shot profile on this club, from a nineteen-year-old who weighs 177 pounds.
He goes to the paint and he takes the puck to the middle of the ice, which at that size is a decision that has to be made every shift and mostly is. The hockey sense is the reason a 5-10 winger made the NHL out of junior — he arrives where the puck is going and he does not need speed to be there first.
19 assists in 71 games at 19.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 177, and he is one of the smallest forwards in this edition. He cannot win a puck on the wall against a defenceman and he is moved off the front of the net at will.
36 penalty minutes in 71 games is a high rate for a player this size, and it is the rate of a nineteen-year-old who does not back down. He retaliates.
The Intangibles
Thirteenth overall in 2023, out of Winnipeg in the Western league, and an NHL regular at 19 with 30 points.
Thirty points and the sixty-sixth percentile of chances at nineteen, at 5-10 and 177 pounds, is the most encouraging line on this roster. The whole question is whether the body arrives — and the profile says he has already decided to play as though it has.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
67.9% of his attempts in the slot, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“**He goes to the paint and he takes the puck to the middle of the ice**, which at that size is a decision that has to be made every shift and mostly is.”
“**He cannot win a puck on the wall against a defenceman and he is moved off the front of the net at will.**”
“**5-10 and 177, and he is one of the smallest forwards in this edition.**”
“36 penalty minutes in 71 games is a high rate for a player this size, and it is the rate of a nineteen-year-old who does not back down. **He retaliates.**”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 907 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52%
- 68th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.1%
- 80th 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: 35 for, 38 against. Expected: 39.2 and 36.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 6 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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, 2023-24 · 71 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 20th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.31 a game
- Distance
- 2.30 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 84.3 mph
- 35th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 907 minutes at five-on-five
- Dylan Cozens45%
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 52.0% — 3.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 907 minutes at five-on-five — 48th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Cozens | 52.0% | 51.9% | 46.5% |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 57.5% | 48.3% | 49.7% |
| JJ Peterka | 55.7% | 49.6% | 50.7% |
52.0% together, 51.9% for him apart and 46.5% for Cozens apart. Cozens was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Cozens 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
137 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 58% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.