Mattias Samuelsson
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 57?
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 goals8 × 3+24
- proj assists32 × 1+32
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots121 × 0.1+12.1
- PIM117 × 0.05+5.9
- ice time (min)1982 × 0.01+19.8
- total94 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 16694 = 57/100
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 94 points is 57 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 (18 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: 1.0 SOG/game lately vs 1.7 before — chances have dried up.
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 15 of 15 for BUF.
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 • +0.6
- TRADE VALUE: AT PACE — trade value is what the numbers say it is.
- 7.7% shooting on 26 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 6.1% (335 shots before this season) — that's 0.4 goals above what his shot volume normally buys for him (1.6 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 6.6%, worth PD +0.6 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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | Sabres | 12 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18:02 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2021-22 | Sabres | 42 | 0 | 10 | 10 | -10 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20:00 | 0 | 0 | 44 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2022-23 | Sabres | 55 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22:11 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 2.6% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Sabres | 41 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20:30 | 1 | 0 | 44 | 2.3% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Sabres | 62 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 3 | 22 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 19:18 | 1 | 0 | 52 | 7.7% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Sabres | 78 | 13 | 28 | 41 | 41 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 22:50 | 3 | 1 | 109 | 11.9% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Sabres | 19 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 4 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23:39 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 7.7% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Sabres | 84 | 8 | 32 | 40 | — | 91 | — | 0 | — | 21:47 | — | — | 114 | — | — |
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 26 that is 0%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Sean Durzi (2025-25) · Jake Walman (2025-25) · Ryan McDonagh (2025-25) · Mason Lohrei (2025-25) · Tony DeAngelo (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 11 · vs TBL | |||||
| P3 00:33 | EV | Assist | #? (Krebs, Samuelsson) → 3-4 | Krebs · Benson Samuelsson · Dahlin | Kucherov · Cirelli · Mikheyev McDonagh · Moser Vasilevskiy (G) |
| Nov 8 · vs VGK | |||||
| P3 04:26 | EV | Assist | #? (Kozak, Samuelsson) → 1-2 | Carrick · Kozak Timmins · Samuelsson | Stone · Eichel · Connelly Hanifin · Coghlan Hill (G) |
| Oct 31 · @ LAK | |||||
| P2 15:38 | EV | Assist | #? (Benson, Samuelsson) → 2-0 | Krebs · Benson Samuelsson · Dahlin | Perry · Moore · Byfield Gustafsson · Clarke Forsberg (G) |
| Oct 29 · @ ANA | |||||
| P1 10:03 | EV | Assist | Kozak (Carrick, Samuelsson) → 1-2 | Carrick · Malenstyn · Kozak Samuelsson · Dahlin | Greer · Gauthier · Washe LaCombe · Warren Husso (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Mattias over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rasmus Dahlin BUF | 107 | 8 | |
| Tage Thompson BUF | 77 | 10 | |
| Zach Benson BUF | 75 | 10 | |
| Peyton Krebs BUF | 72 | 10 | |
| Noah Ostlund BUF | 63 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats