Returning regular · 2025-26
Erik Gustafsson
Los Angeles Kings · LD · — shot · age 34 at the dated snapshot.
- Team
- LAK
- Lane
- LD
- Age
- 34
Production and deployment
How the points were built
Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.
Organizational context
3 LD regulars in LAK
The all-team median is 4. LAK’s farm system ranks #23 in the maintained two-board consensus.
Questions a GM still has to answer
- How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
- Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
- Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
- What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?
Tonight
LAK do not play today
League schedule for 2026-09-29; next league date 2026-09-30.
Nothing listed against him.
White noise · as of 2026-09-29 · social 2026-09-29
Erik Gustafsson is quiet (26th percentile); attention is up on the usual
How much he is being talked about: the league's own stories tagged to him, daily pageviews of his Wikipedia article against his own 90-day baseline, posts naming him on the connected networks (Bluesky), and the roster moves and listings that make noise. A measure of attention. Whether it affects a player is his business, and a question the history will let us test later.
Social: 2 posts named him this week on Bluesky · 0 likes, reposts and replies · no baseline yet, it needs a week of readings.
Contract · LAK
Cap hit not published
Term not published. Unknown
Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games
Erik Gustafsson, season by season
Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (80% band), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.
Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.
What the numbers found
- Flash in the pan holds in 81% of re-measurements
2018-19 (age 26): 59.6 points per 82 games against 33.9 expected from his earlier seasons (z 2.8); the next seasons averaged 34 (z 0.1 against the old expectation). Flash in the pan; the call survives 81% of re-measurements.
- Exceeded ceiling chance at the draft of going this far past the projection: 9%
Projection at the draft: 0 NHL hours through age 25 expected (80% band 0-18); he logged 21, above the 90th percentile.
Projection at the draft
At the draft the model expected 0 NHL hours through his age-25 season (80% band 0 to 18). He logged 21 hours, above the 90th percentile.
Every season
| Season | Age | GP | Level | Expected (80%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 23 | 41 | 30.0 | 8.8 to 44.1 |
| 2017-18 | 25 | 35 | 36.4 | 14.3 to 45.3 |
| 2018-19 | 26 | 79 | 59.6 | 21.9 to 45.8 |
| 2019-20 | 27 | 66 | 34.6 | 39.5 to 61.9 |
| 2020-21 | 28 | 29 | 33.3 | 27.8 to 55.6 |
| 2021-22 | 29 | 59 | 22.9 | 24.8 to 48.9 |
| 2022-23 | 30 | 70 | 44.6 | 17.3 to 39.8 |
| 2023-24 | 31 | 76 | 30.9 | 25.6 to 47.4 |
| 2024-25 | 32 | 60 | 23.3 | 19.0 to 41.7 |
| 2025-26 | 33 | 2 | 0.0 | −18.6 to 67.5 |
Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29
Comparables at the same age
Who looked like this at 31 to 34
Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.
This player so far: age 17 Swe-U18 0.30 → age 18 J20 Nationell 0.33 → age 19 J20 Nationell 0.60 → age 20 SHL 0.17 → age 21 HockeyAllsvenskan 0.44 → age 22 SHL 0.40 → age 23 SHL 0.53 → age 24 NHL 0.34 → age 25 AHL 0.44 → age 26 NHL 0.46 → age 27 NHL 0.76 → age 28 NHL 0.44 → age 29 NHL 0.42 → age 30 NHL 0.30 → age 31 NHL 0.62 → age 32 NHL 0.41 → age 33 NHL 0.30 → age 34 AHL 0.95
| Player | Distance (lower is closer) | What he did afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Jared SpurgeonD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.16 | age 35 NHL 0.48 → age 36 NHL 0.28 |
| Tyler MyersD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.16 | age 35 NHL 0.34 → age 36 NHL 0.14 |
| Ryan McDonaghD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.19 | age 35 NHL 0.38 → age 36 NHL 0.44 |
| Ian ColeD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.20 | age 35 NHL 0.14 → age 36 NHL 0.21 → age 37 NHL 0.28 |
| Chris TanevD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.23 | age 35 NHL 0.24 → age 36 NHL 0.18 |
| Vladimir DraveckyD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.27 | age 35 Czechia 0.06 → age 36 Czechia 0.12 → age 37 Czechia 0.09 → age 38 Czechia 0.07 → age 39 Czechia 0.05 |
| Drew DoughtyD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.27 | age 35 NHL 0.57 → age 36 NHL 0.32 |
| Luke SchennD · matched at ages 31, 32, 33, 34 | 0.32 | age 35 NHL 0.08 → age 36 NHL 0.15 |
Reading it
If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.
Goal archive ·
Every goal, with the league's video
Preseason, regular season and playoffs are kept apart. Each row links to the NHL's own highlight page; no video is hosted here. Where a clip has been reviewed, the reading of it is a model judgement of the frames, not a measurement.
Loading…
Availability
Games missed
The NHL publishes no injury feed. This counts games his club played while he did not dress, for any reason: injury, illness, a healthy scratch, a suspension or a trade gap. No cause is claimed.
NHL EDGE tracking · 2025-26
Speed, shot and ice
From the NHL's own player-tracking data. Percentiles are the NHL's: the share of the league below this player.