Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 44?
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 goals20 × 3+60
- proj assists15 × 1+15
- PP points5 × 0.5+2.5
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots154 × 0.1+15.4
- PIM28 × 0.05+1.4
- ice time (min)1276 × 0.01+12.8
- total107 pool points · an elite forward season scores 242107 = 44/100
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 107 points is 44 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
- Shooting more: 2.3 SOG/game lately vs 1.7 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 — 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.
- 12.1% shooting on 33 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 13.3% (281 shots before this season) — that's 0.4 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (4.4 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 12.9%, 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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | Coyotes | 11 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12:19 | 1 | 0 | 23 | 21.7% | 41.7% |
| 2024-25 | Utah Hockey Club | 51 | 7 | 12 | 19 | -2 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 13:31 | 1 | 0 | 88 | 8.0% | 41.2% |
| 2025-26 | Sabres | 82 | 25 | 27 | 52 | -4 | 25 | 9 | 17 | 0 | 15:52 | 4 | 0 | 170 | 14.7% | 22.2% |
| 2026-27 | Sabres | 19 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 15:02 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 11.8% | 40.0% |
| 84-G proj | Sabres | 84 | 20 | 15 | 35 | — | 34 | — | 13 | — | 15:11 | — | — | 147 | — | — |
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 24 that is 1%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: James Neal (2020-20) · Alex Chiasson (2021-21) · Ryan Leonard (2025-25) · Kailer Yamamoto (2025-25) · Kirby Dach (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 11 · vs TBL | |||||
| P2 15:54 | PP | Goal | #? (McLeod, Norris) → 1-4 | Zucker · Norris · McLeod Power | Cirelli · Hagel Carlson · Hedman Vasilevskiy (G) |
| Nov 6 · vs CBJ | |||||
| P2 10:53 | EV | Goal | #? (Ostlund, Quinn) → 5-1 | Quinn · Ostlund Zellweger · Metsa | Monahan · Nichushkin · Johnson Werenski · Mateychuk Greaves (G) |
| Oct 24 · @ WSH | |||||
| P1 10:36 | EV | Goal | Doan (McLeod) → 2-0 | McLeod · Doan · Helenius Samuelsson · Dahlin | Jenner · Sourdif · Wilson Chychrun · Fehérváry Lindgren (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Josh over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owen Power BUF | 67 | 10 | |
| Noah Ostlund BUF | 63 | 10 | |
| Jack Quinn BUF | 60 | 9 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson BUF | 57 | 10 | |
| Olen Zellweger BUF | 54 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats