This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zach Benson
Buffalo Sabres Left Wing
20 years old, 5-10, and 61 per cent of his shots taken from inside 20 feet — the highest share on the roster.
| 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 | BUF | 75 | 10 | 18 | 28 | -2 | 60 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 120 | 8.3 | 14:49 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 146 | 21 | 37 | 58 | -5 | 96 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 218 | 9.6 | 14:40 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
10 goals and 18 assists in 75 games for 28 points, minus-2, on 14:49 a night.
52.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 72nd percentile — the best figure among the club’s forwards — with on-ice goals of 38-36 against an expected 34-31. A median shot distance of 14 feet with 61 per cent of his attempts inside 20, which is the most extreme interior shot profile in this chapter.
The Finesse Game
A small forward who has decided the only way to play is inside, and it works. He goes to the net, he takes pucks off sticks below the goal line, and the passing out of those areas is genuinely good for 20.
8.3 per cent shooting on 120 attempts is low given the locations and should improve; a man taking 61 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet will convert better than that. The hockey sense is the standout — he reads a play a beat early and is almost never caught in the wrong place.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 177, and he plays as though he is not. He forechecks with real force, goes into corners with defencemen, and does not get discouraged when he loses.
60 penalty minutes in 75 games at 20 is a very high total and it is the one thing to watch — a small forward whose game depends on being where the punishment is will take it and give some back, and it is expensive on a club with a middling penalty kill.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick who went straight from junior to the NHL at 18 and has been trusted with real minutes ever since.
He is the most encouraging player in this chapter. A 70th-percentile chance share at 20, on a club where nobody else is above 52, is the sort of number that does not happen by accident. The scoring will follow the locations.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
68.0% of his attempts in the slot, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
52.4% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 46.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +5.8, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“He goes to the net, he takes pucks off sticks below the goal line, and the passing out of those areas is genuinely good for 20.”
“the passing out of those areas is genuinely good for 20”
“He forechecks with real force, goes into corners with defencemen, and does not get discouraged when he loses.”
“goes into corners with defencemen”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 884 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.4%
- 73rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.4%
- 94th 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: 38 for, 36 against. Expected: 34.5 and 31.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 11 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 79 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, 2024-25 · 75 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 20th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.68 a game
- Distance
- 2.37 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 83.2 mph
- 34th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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
2024-25 · 884 minutes at five-on-five
- Peyton Krebs32%
- Jiri Kulich29%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- BUF took 47.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.4% — 4.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 884 minutes at five-on-five — 43rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bowen Byram | 53.0% | 52.0% | 47.5% |
| Owen Power | 49.1% | 54.4% | 46.6% |
| Peyton Krebs | 52.2% | 52.5% | 44.7% |
53.0% together, 52.0% for him apart and 47.5% for Byram apart. Byram was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Byram 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
181 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 62% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 10% from beyond forty.