Zach Werenski
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 87?
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 goals10 × 3+30
- proj assists54 × 1+54
- PP points21 × 0.5+10.5
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots263 × 0.1+26.3
- PIM0 × 0.05+0
- ice time (min)2376 × 0.01+23.8
- total145 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 166145 = 87/100
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 defensemen in the NHL — an elite season scores about 166 points, and that is what 100 means. So 145 points is 87 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 (16 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
- Shooting more: 4.2 SOG/game lately vs 2.8 before — volume is there even if points lag.
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 14 of 14 for CBJ.
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 ▼ −4.1
- TRADE VALUE: AT PACE — trade value is what the numbers say it is.
- 4.0% shooting on 50 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 7.4% (1658 shots before this season) — that's 1.7 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (3.7 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 5.9%, worth PD −4.1 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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | Blue Jackets | 78 | 11 | 36 | 47 | 17 | 14 | 4 | 21 | 0 | 20:55 | 1 | 1 | 188 | 5.9% | 0.0% |
| 2017-18 | Blue Jackets | 77 | 16 | 21 | 37 | 8 | 16 | 3 | 10 | 0 | 22:35 | 3 | 1 | 207 | 7.7% | 0.0% |
| 2018-19 | Blue Jackets | 82 | 11 | 33 | 44 | -12 | 18 | 2 | 15 | 0 | 22:54 | 1 | 0 | 168 | 6.6% | 0.0% |
| 2019-20 | Blue Jackets | 63 | 20 | 21 | 41 | 9 | 10 | 5 | 13 | 1 | 23:59 | 4 | 2 | 187 | 10.7% | 0.0% |
| 2020-21 | Blue Jackets | 35 | 7 | 13 | 20 | -9 | 13 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 24:22 | 1 | 1 | 79 | 8.9% | 0.0% |
| 2021-22 | Blue Jackets | 68 | 11 | 37 | 48 | -15 | 22 | 4 | 14 | 0 | 25:40 | 2 | 0 | 216 | 5.1% | 0.0% |
| 2022-23 | Blue Jackets | 13 | 3 | 5 | 8 | -6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 23:36 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 7.3% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Blue Jackets | 70 | 11 | 46 | 57 | 0 | 22 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 24:27 | 0 | 0 | 202 | 5.4% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Blue Jackets | 81 | 23 | 59 | 82 | 12 | 31 | 5 | 25 | 1 | 26:45 | 5 | 2 | 298 | 7.7% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Blue Jackets | 75 | 22 | 59 | 81 | 7 | 18 | 4 | 21 | 0 | 26:37 | 2 | 0 | 260 | 8.5% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Blue Jackets | 17 | 2 | 12 | 14 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 28:10 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 3.6% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Blue Jackets | 84 | 10 | 54 | 64 | — | 19 | — | 21 | — | 24:20 | — | — | 190 | — | — |
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 29 that is -1%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Roman Josi (2025-25) · Victor Hedman (2025-25) · Erik Karlsson (2025-25) · John Carlson (2025-25) · Shea Theodore (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 6 · @ BUF | |||||
| P3 18:21 | PP | Goal | #? (Knies, Johnson) → 2-5 | Johnson · Knies · Fantilli Mateychuk | Malenstyn · Benson Power · Zellweger Luukkonen (G) |
| Nov 5 · vs DAL | |||||
| P3 16:46 | EV | Goal | #? (Johnson, Knies) → 1-1 | Monahan · Johnson · Knies Severson | Perron · Hintz · Hyry Lindell · Bichsel DeSmith (G) |
| Nov 3 · vs COL | |||||
| P2 12:03 | PP | Assist | #? (Johnson, Werenski) → 5-1 | Johnson · Knies · Fantilli Werenski | Kelly · O'Connor Kulak · Malinski Blackwood (G) |
| P2 07:20 | EV | Assist | #? (Werenski, Olivier) → 4-1 | Coyle · Olivier Severson · Werenski | Lehkonen · MacKinnon · Necas Toews · Makar Wedgewood (G) · Blackwood (G) |
| Oct 31 · @ DAL | |||||
| P3 06:21 | EV | Assist | #? (Werenski, Johnson) → 1-2 | Johnson · Sillinger · Fantilli Werenski | Rantanen · Steel · Johnston Lindell · Heiskanen Oettinger (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Zach over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damon Severson CBJ | 172 | 10 | |
| Adam Fantilli CBJ | 125 | 10 | |
| Charlie Coyle CBJ | 123 | 10 | |
| Matthew Knies CBJ | 114 | 10 | |
| Kent Johnson CBJ | 110 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats