Jason Zucker
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 38?
Each row is one fantasy category turned into points over a full 84-game season. Add the rows up and that is his total fantasy worth.
- proj goals16 × 3+48
- proj assists13 × 1+13
- PP points9 × 0.5+4.5
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots149 × 0.1+14.9
- PIM19 × 0.05+1
- ice time (min)1060 × 0.01+10.6
- total92 pool points · an elite forward season scores 24292 = 38/100
Weights follow what the average fantasy league actually counts: goals at 3× assists (the universal core), power-play points and game-winners at half weight (common extra categories), OT goals, shots and PIM small (many leagues skip them), and ice time as a quiet availability bonus. The scale: add up a whole season of those categories and compare against the best forwards in the NHL — an elite season scores about 242 points, and that is what 100 means. So 92 points is 38 out of a perfect fantasy season at his position. Defensemen and forwards are graded on separate scales because the D slot can only be filled by a defenseman. Goals and assists come from the backtested season model; the rest ride your own season-to-date pace over 84 games (9 games so far — small sample, secondary lines will move as roles settle). Hits/blocks are excluded: the free NHL feeds don't publish full-season totals, and we don't invent them.
The Situation
- Off the net: 1.3 SOG/game lately vs 2.3 before — chances have dried up.
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: played 10 of 15 for BUF — missed 5 games (2026-10-12, 2026-10-13, 2026-10-15, 2026-10-17, …).
- Ironman warning: multiple absences already — treat nightly projections for this player as low-confidence.
- Not on the NHL Status Report — recent absences were healthy scratches or coach's decisions unless a wire note says otherwise.
Every line is measured from our own boxscore ledger; absence reasons from the NHL Status Report and our transaction wire only — no insider guessing.
Finishing check on pace O/U • −0.2
- TRADE VALUE: AT PACE — trade value is what the numbers say it is.
- 12.5% shooting on 16 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 13.3% (1334 shots before this season) — that's 0.1 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (2.1 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 13.1%, worth PD −0.2 goals per 84 over/under his own standard.
- His goals track his shot volume almost exactly — what you see is what you have.
Model: goals vs shot volume vs live league position baselines; talent SH% is an empirical-Bayes shrinkage of the season…
His shooting talent is estimated by shrinking his season shooting percentage toward his league position mean in proportion to sample size (kappa pseudo-shots prior), then projecting the gap over 84 games at his current shot volume. Small samples stay near zero — the number only moves when the evidence does.
The method follows published hockey-analytics research: a shooter is judged against his own career shooting percentage, because a player's own career rate predicts his next goals better than any league average (“Expected by Whom? A Skill-Adjusted Expected Goals Model for NHL Shooters and Goaltenders,” arXiv:2511.07703). Thin careers (rookies) shrink toward the league mean for the position, and the season number is shrunk toward the player's own anchor with empirical-Bayes weights — Nandakumar & Jensen (2019), Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, doi:10.1146/annurev-statistics-030718-105202. This section is about the gap between luck and his pace, not talent.
Season stats
NHL regular-season totals, season by season. The 84-G proj line extends the current season with our public model — methodology in the caption below the table.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P | +/- | PIM | PPG | PPP | SHG | TOI/GP | GWG | OTG | S | S% | FOW% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | Wild | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11:02 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2012-13 | Wild | 20 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11:16 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 11.8% | 0.0% |
| 2013-14 | Wild | 21 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 12:59 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 10.0% | 0.0% |
| 2014-15 | Wild | 51 | 21 | 5 | 26 | -9 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15:04 | 3 | 0 | 124 | 16.9% | 28.6% |
| 2015-16 | Wild | 71 | 13 | 10 | 23 | -4 | 20 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 15:35 | 1 | 1 | 158 | 8.2% | 100.0% |
| 2016-17 | Wild | 79 | 22 | 25 | 47 | 34 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 15:17 | 3 | 0 | 172 | 12.8% | 20.0% |
| 2017-18 | Wild | 82 | 33 | 31 | 64 | 8 | 44 | 7 | 16 | 1 | 16:58 | 7 | 0 | 222 | 14.9% | 22.2% |
| 2018-19 | Wild | 81 | 21 | 21 | 42 | -9 | 28 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 17:05 | 5 | 1 | 214 | 9.8% | 15.4% |
| 2019-20 | Wild | 45 | 14 | 15 | 29 | -3 | 19 | 5 | 9 | 0 | 15:54 | 2 | 0 | 75 | 18.7% | 30.0% |
| 2019-20 | Penguins | 15 | 6 | 6 | 12 | -1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 17:40 | 2 | 0 | 36 | 16.7% | 0.0% |
| 2020-21 | Penguins | 38 | 9 | 9 | 18 | -8 | 21 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 15:41 | 1 | 0 | 67 | 13.4% | 30.0% |
| 2021-22 | Penguins | 41 | 8 | 9 | 17 | -2 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 14:49 | 0 | 0 | 102 | 7.8% | 26.7% |
| 2022-23 | Penguins | 78 | 27 | 21 | 48 | -4 | 47 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 15:39 | 5 | 1 | 197 | 13.7% | 26.7% |
| 2023-24 | Coyotes | 51 | 9 | 16 | 25 | -5 | 58 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 14:02 | 0 | 0 | 104 | 8.7% | 37.9% |
| 2023-24 | Predators | 18 | 5 | 2 | 7 | -4 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 13:13 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 10.9% | 50.0% |
| 2024-25 | Sabres | 73 | 21 | 32 | 53 | 4 | 57 | 11 | 21 | 0 | 16:00 | 4 | 0 | 143 | 14.7% | 39.6% |
| 2025-26 | Sabres | 62 | 24 | 21 | 45 | -5 | 23 | 10 | 16 | 0 | 15:37 | 7 | 0 | 128 | 18.8% | 38.7% |
| 2026-27 | Sabres | 10 | 2 | 0 | 2 | -6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 12:44 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 11.8% | 100.0% |
| 84-G proj | Sabres | 84 | 16 | 13 | 29 | — | 33 | — | 14 | — | 14:05 | — | — | 141 | — | — |
84-G proj — current pace blended with the player's own history (recent seasons weighted heaviest), mixed with a similarity projection from historical players with comparable profiles, then adjusted for the aging curve (league-average peak at 27; decline after) — at age 34 that is -5%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 11 · vs TBL | |||||
| P2 19:32 | EV | Goal | #? (Ostlund, Quinn) → 2-4 | Quinn · Ostlund Samuelsson · Power | Girgensons · Holmberg · Mikheyev McDonagh · Carlson Vasilevskiy (G) |
| Oct 21 · vs PHI | |||||
| P2 19:25 | PP | Goal | Zucker (Quinn, Ostlund) → 1-2 | Zucker · Quinn · Kulich · Ostlund Dahlin | Couturier · Cates Benoit · Drysdale Vladar (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Jason over the last 8 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Norris BUF | 64 | 8 | |
| Owen Power BUF | 47 | 8 | |
| Ryan McLeod BUF | 40 | 6 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin BUF | 34 | 8 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson BUF | 32 | 8 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats