Defenseman Henri Jokiharju showed some improvement last season for the Buffalo Sabres. What will his 2022-23 campaign look like?
Henri Jokiharju is about to enter his fourth season with the Buffalo Sabres. He arrived in Buffalo for the Alex Nylander trade with the Chicago Blackhawks and has been a staple on Buffalo’s blue line for a few seasons. I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling that Jokiharju will have a breakout season with Buffalo this year.
It won’t be anything spectacular but I see him having a solid year. In this article, I’m going to predict his stats for this season. Last year, the man they call “Joker” scored 3 goals and registered 16 assists in 60 games played according to Hockey-Reference.
What will Henri Jokiharju do for the Buffalo Sabres this year?
This season, I predict Jokiharju will score somewhere in the seven to 13 goal range. As mentioned earlier, I think he’ll have a productive season but nothing too crazy. He’ll be somewhere within the top four on the Sabres blue and even though he hasn’t scored a lot of goals in his young career, I think this will be the year we see a different Jokiharju.
When it comes to assists, Joker will finish somewhere in the 20-25 range. With the amount of talent Buffalo has and assuming he’ll be playing in the top four, I expect him to be heavily involved on the offensive attack.
As mentioned, I’m not entirely sure why I see Jokiharju having a breakout campaign in 2022-23. It might be due to the newer faces in the rotation that include Owen Power and Ilya Lyubushkin. Or it could deal with the fact Jokiharju is just gaining more experience and it’s a natural next step for his statistics to increase. Either way, expect more productivity in 2022-23 from Jokiharju.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)