Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 55?
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 goals12 × 3+36
- proj assists18 × 1+18
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals5 × 0.5+2.5
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots153 × 0.1+15.3
- PIM59 × 0.05+3
- ice time (min)1652 × 0.01+16.5
- total91 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 16691 = 55/100
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 91 points is 55 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 (17 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 2.8 before — chances have dried up.
- Cold window: 0.0 pts/10 over the last 6 vs 6.7/10 baseline — pace has fallen off.
- 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 ▲ +1.9
- TRADE VALUE: AT PACE — trade value is what the numbers say it is.
- 9.7% shooting on 31 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 5.9% (283 shots before this season) — that's 1.2 goals above what his shot volume normally buys for him (1.8 expected goals). on pace. His shrunk talent rate is 7.2%, worth PD +1.9 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 | Ducks | 26 | 2 | 7 | 9 | -6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 19:17 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 5.9% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Ducks | 62 | 7 | 13 | 20 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 18:58 | 0 | 0 | 130 | 5.4% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Ducks | 76 | 7 | 15 | 22 | 4 | 34 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 16:59 | 1 | 1 | 119 | 5.9% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Sabres | 18 | 3 | 3 | 6 | -4 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19:22 | 1 | 0 | 32 | 9.4% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Sabres | 84 | 12 | 18 | 30 | — | 56 | — | 2 | — | 19:25 | — | — | 130 | — | — |
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 23 that is 2%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Simon Nemec (2025-25) · Olen Zellweger (2025-25) · Oliver Kylington (2023-23) · Denton Mateychuk (2025-25) · Kaiden Guhle (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 29 · @ ANA | |||||
| P3 06:37 | EV | Assist | Benson (Zellweger) → 7-3 | Thompson · Krebs · Benson Power · Zellweger | Vatrano · Carlsson · McQueen Jensen · Hinds Husso (G) |
| Oct 27 · @ SJS | |||||
| P2 00:50 | EV | Goal | Zellweger (Helenius, Power) → 1-0 | Benson · Malenstyn · Helenius Zellweger · Samuelsson · Power | Marchment · Misa · Gaudette Orlov · Cagnoni Askarov (G) |
| Oct 24 · @ WSH | |||||
| P1 06:27 | EV | Assist | Quinn (Zellweger, Benson) → 1-0 | Benson · Quinn · Ostlund Zellweger · Power | Ovechkin · Protas · Beauvillier Roy · Chychrun Lindgren (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Olen 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 | 82 | 10 | |
| Jack Quinn BUF | 54 | 10 | |
| Josh Doan BUF | 54 | 10 | |
| Zach Benson BUF | 52 | 10 | |
| Tage Thompson BUF | 51 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats