Buffalo Sabres

Atlantic Division, Eastern Conference · 23 reports in the 2026-27 edition.

The club

2025-26 · 82 games · 249 for, 199 against

How it played

Shot attempts share, five-on-five: 49.7% 15th of 32
Expected goals share, five-on-five: 51.1% 11th of 32
Power play expected goals per sixty: 6.97 20th of 32
Penalty kill expected goals allowed per sixty: 7.12 16th of 32

Where the record lies

Finishing goals scored above what the chances were worth: +21.0 2nd of 32
Goaltending goals prevented beyond what the chances allowed were worth: +9.7 10th of 32

Buffalo Sabres scored 21.0 more goals than their chances were worth and got 9.7 more saves than the chances they faced warranted — 31 goals of the record that the underlying play does not explain. Both halves regress.

Roster shape

Points-weighted, so these are the ages and origins of the production rather than of the sweaters.

Average age: 26.2; weighted by points
From 33 and up: 11.5%; of skater points
From under 26: 59.7%; of skater points
Homegrown: 39.6%; drafted by this club
Continuity: 77.0%; of last season's five-on-five minutes

The read

the numbers, and the eye

288 goals off the second-best finishing in the league, and a middling 11th at creating the chances underneath it.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

The book

25th of 32

The numbers

17th of 32

The numbers place it 8 spots higher than the book does. Every report underneath was written with these numbers on screen and the book departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight.

Both bars rank this club among the 32 in the edition. The report bar is the mean of its players' grades, weighted by the five-on-five minutes each of them played; the numbers bar is their expected-goal share on the same weighting. It counts 20 of the 23 reports on this roster — the rest have no five-on-five record long enough to weigh — and it reads the roster as it stands rather than the club's own last season.

Who the words reach 21 of 23 · 93% of the five-on-five minutes who is left out (2)

The bars above counted every man on the roster with enough ice time to weigh. The paragraphs name whoever they name, and no rule says who that should be — so this says who it was, over the write-up as a whole. Each section below reaches far fewer than this, which is the figure that matters: the section is where the selection happens, and the count sits under each one. The share is of the five-on-five minutes played by the 20 men on this roster who have a measured record.

Not named: Zach Metsa, Conor Sheary.

Who this names 10 of 23 on the roster · 52% of their five-on-five minutes details

Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it: in full always, by surname only when one man in the edition wears it. Nothing here says who ought to be named — only who was, so the weighting can be seen rather than guessed at.

Not named here: Louis Crevier, Josh Doan, Colten Ellis, Tyson Kozak, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Alex Lyon, Ryan McLeod, Zach Metsa, Josh Norris, Owen Power, Mattias Samuelsson, Conor Sheary, Conor Timmins.

What the Quant Says

A good scoreboard laid over an ordinary process. Buffalo scored 193 5-on-5 goals against an expectation of 172 — a surplus of 21.0, second only to Boston — while sitting 12th in even-strength creation and 15th in shot-attempt share.

The goaltending added another 9.7, 10th. So roughly 30 goals of a 288-goal, 241-against season came from finishing and stopping rather than from play, and both regress. What is genuinely encouraging sits underneath: a defenceman putting up 74 points at 26 whose underlying numbers finally agree with the pedigree, and forwards at 21 and 24 whose shot charts are built from inside 20 feet rather than outside it.

What the Scout Says

A club with 2 players who can decide a game and a great many who cannot yet decide a shift. Tage Thompson is 6-6 with hands that are frankly absurd for the size, and the release point is somewhere a goaltender has not seen a puck come from before. Rasmus Dahlin skates and passes at a level almost nobody at the position reaches, and manipulates penalty killers from the line the way a forward does.

Around them the roster keeps producing the same shape: skilled, light, and working from the outside. Jack Quinn shoots from the perimeter and has a 30-goal scorer in him if he will stand somewhere less comfortable; Noah Ostlund is removed from pucks by men who simply weigh more; Olen Zellweger cannot clear a crease. The men who correct it are the honest ones — Beck Malenstyn does the hard job hard, Peyton Krebs finishes every check at a size that makes it expensive, Sam Carrick wins draws and will fight. The 2 players who most instruct the rest are Jason Zucker and Zach Benson, both of whom simply go and stand where goals happen.

Who this names 6 of 13 forwards · 52% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Sam Carrick, Tyson Kozak, Peyton Krebs, Beck Malenstyn, Noah Ostlund, Conor Sheary, Jason Zucker.

What the Quant Says

A good scoring team that did it the fragile way. Buffalo scored 193 5-on-5 goals against an expectation of 172 — a surplus of 21.0, second only to Boston — while ranking 12th in even-strength expected goals per 60. The chances were ordinary; the conversion was not.

Tage Thompson took 272 shots for 40 goals from a median of 32 feet, which is a 6-6 man doing it the hard way and the sort of profile that swings hardest from year to year. The encouraging names shoot from closer: Josh Doan from a median of 17 feet for 25 goals and the best on-ice rate on the roster — 54.9 per cent, 88th percentile — and Zach Benson from 13 feet at 21. Ryan McLeod's 54 points and plus-25 sit on top of a 5-on-5 record where the goals went 61-47 against, which is the one headline number here the play does not support.

What the Scout Says

One outstanding shooter and a roster-wide argument about where to stand. Tage Thompson's shot is the best on the club and one of the best in the league, and he handles pucks in traffic that players a foot shorter would lose; he is also knocked off pucks more than a man his size should be. Josh Norris is a genuine finisher when available — soft hands in tight, a one-timer that belongs on a first unit — and his body keeps stopping him.

The instructive pages belong to the 2 men who solved the problem. Jason Zucker's chart is the report: he knows exactly where to stand, and it makes him one of the club's 3 best finishers into his thirties. Zach Benson is 177 pounds and lives in ice a player that size is not supposed to survive, because he arrives at the net without the puck and finds the space between 2 defenders that neither thinks worth guarding. Josh Doan shoots from the right places and often. Against them, Jack Quinn shoots plenty and mostly from the outside, and does not put himself in the traffic where the shorter shots live — the ability is not the difference. Ryan McLeod plays at speed or not at all; Noah Ostlund's passing is a step ahead of his finishing.

Who this names 6 of 7 defencemen · 94% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Zach Metsa.

What the Quant Says

16th in even-strength expected goals against: not the problem, not the solution. The blue line is young, enormous and finally producing. Rasmus Dahlin put up 74 points in 24:11 a night and, for the first time, underlying numbers that agree with the pedigree — 53.6 per cent of the expected goals, 81st percentile.

Owen Power played 1,514 5-on-5 minutes, the most on the club, and returned 29 points and a 50.6 per cent share: 1st overall, 6-6, 23, and still closer to solid than to driving. Mattias Samuelsson is the cautionary page — the best plus-minus in the entire league at plus-41, on a shot-attempt share in the 26th percentile. 3 defencemen over 1,480 minutes at 23, 26 and 26 is a real asset base; none of them yet tilts the ice the way the point totals suggest.

What the Scout Says

One of the two or three most gifted defencemen alive, and a group around him that does not fit together cleanly. Rasmus Dahlin's skating is elite and it is the whole engine, and the passing is the better skill — the seam feeds made at full speed with a man on him are what separate him. He is not moving anybody out of the front of his own net.

Owen Power has genuinely good feet for a man 6-6, walks the puck out of his own end and rarely panics under a forecheck, and almost never uses his size to end a play or clear a man from the crease. That is the gap between what he is and what he could be. Olen Zellweger is the third skater: edges that let him escape a forechecker in a space that should not be big enough, a quick first pass, a power-play game that works like a forward's — and he cannot clear a crease and loses wall battles to grown wingers, surviving by ending plays with feet and stick before contact is available. Mattias Samuelsson is the counterweight and he is very good at the actual job. Louis Crevier is the tallest man in this book and is enormously effective when he can get his stick on a puck; the trouble is arriving. Conor Timmins stands at the blue line and does nothing else with it.

The roster

Evidence 20 Full 3 Light 0 No record

Zach Benson

LW · Buffalo Sabres

5-10, 177 pounds, and he does his shooting from 13 feet.

Sam Carrick

#10

C · Buffalo Sabres

6 goals in his last 10 games, at 34, in 10 minutes a night.

Louis Crevier

D · Buffalo Sabres

6-8, and the 5th percentile in expected goals while he was on the ice.

Rasmus Dahlin

#26

D · Buffalo Sabres

74 points, 24 minutes a night, and the numbers finally agree with the pedigree.

Josh Doan

#91

RW · Buffalo Sabres

The best on-ice rate on the roster, and he gets it by shooting from 17 feet.

Colten Ellis

G · Buffalo Sabres

16 games, a .903, and not enough of either to say much.

Tyson Kozak

C · Buffalo Sabres

4th percentile in shot attempts, which is nearly the bottom of the league.

Peyton Krebs

C · Buffalo Sabres

A first-round pick who has become a hard, useful, entirely ordinary bottom-6 centre.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

G · Buffalo Sabres

Finished the season stopping .922, which is the number this club has been waiting 6 years for.

Alex Lyon

#34

G · Buffalo Sabres

Undrafted, 33, and finished the season going the wrong way.

Beck Malenstyn

LW · Buffalo Sabres

14 points, and he takes his shots from closer than most of the men who scored 40.

Ryan McLeod

#71

C · Buffalo Sabres

54 points, plus 25, and a 5-on-5 record that tells a different story.

Zach Metsa

D · Buffalo Sabres

5-9, undrafted, and an NHL debut at 26.

Josh Norris

C · Buffalo Sabres

On for 33 goals and 10 against, in 535 minutes he was fit for.

Noah Ostlund

C · Buffalo Sabres

11 goals on 60 shots, and the underlying numbers of a player who belongs.

Owen Power

#25

D · Buffalo Sabres

1st overall, 6-6, 1,500 minutes, and 29 points.

Jack Quinn

#22

RW · Buffalo Sabres

51 points and 191 shots, and still shooting from too far out.

Mattias Samuelsson

#23

D · Buffalo Sabres

The best plus-minus in the league, and a shot-attempt share in the 26th percentile.

Conor Sheary

#43

LW · Buffalo Sabres

5-8, undrafted, 2 Stanley Cups, and 655 games.

Tage Thompson

#72

C · Buffalo Sabres

6-6, 40 goals, and a shot chart that says he is doing it the hard way.

Conor Timmins

#21

D · Buffalo Sabres

70 shots, no goals, and the longest average shot distance in this edition.

Olen Zellweger

#51

D · Buffalo Sabres

5-10, and the 83rd percentile in shot attempts on a bad team.

Jason Zucker

#17

LW · Buffalo Sabres

34 years old, 24 goals, and the second-shortest average shot in the league.

How they were used

2025-26 · 82 games

Measured from shift charts at five-on-five, not projected. Units are built from the strongest partnership outward and ordered by how much they were used; the percentage is the share of the first player’s five-on-five ice time spent alongside each linemate. A low number means the club never settled on a combination. Players who have gone are marked — either to another club, or off an NHL roster altogether, which covers retirement and an unsigned summer alike.