All 776 players Columbus Blue Jackets desk

Returning regular · 2025-26

Danton Heinen

Columbus Blue Jackets · LW · L shot · age 31 at the dated snapshot.

Team: CBJ
Lane: LW
Age: 31

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.

Games46

Goals6

Assists6

Points12

Even strength12all even-strength points

Power play0

Short handed0

Empty net1

5v5 points / 601.325

Average TOI11:20

PP TOI0:07

PK TOI0:12

Organizational context

4 LW regulars in CBJ

The all-team median is 4. CBJ’s farm system ranks #21 in the maintained two-board consensus.

Thin lane

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?

Shot quality · 2025-26

Expected goals

CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC 0.756). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.

Unblocked shots74

Expected goals5.87.8% per shot

Goals6

Finishing+0.2goals above expected

CapOrCup measures · 2025-26

What happens while he plays

Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.

Share of chance quality59%2.79 expected goals for and 1.92 against per 60 minutes

Drive, three seasons (ranking measure)+1.5 pts5v5 chance share against his club without him, over this season and the two before (weights 1 / 0.7 / 0.4; 498 / 877 / 934 minutes) · 80% band -0.7 to 3.6 pts. This is the number the rankings order by: it predicts next season better than one season does.

Drive, this season only+7 ptsat 5-on-5, over 8.3 hours: his share minus the club's share when he is off the ice · with its 80% band: 6.5 pts, 80% band 2.1 to 10.9 pts

Setup (chances his passes produced)1.26 xG4 primary assists; 0.315 expected goals per pass on average, 0.145 per 60. A pass to a tap-in counts more than a pass to a point shot.

Drive, offence-0.24expected goals created per 60 with him on, minus the club without him

Drive, defence+0.77expected goals suppressed per 60 with him on, against the club without him; positive means fewer chances allowed

Isolated impact (RAPM), offence / defence-0.01 / +0.24expected goals per 60 at 5v5 with every teammate, opponent, score state, venue and zone start held as columns of one ridge regression; ± 0.10 / 0.10 SE over 498 minutes

Offensive-zone starts39%of his faceoffs in either end zone; heavy offensive use lifts the numbers above

Chance share, score-and-venue adjusted (5v5)58%raw 58%; each shot weighted by the league's share in that score state and venue, so trailing at home is not mistaken for tilting the ice

Finish, shrunk (goals above expected per 100 shots)-0.3raw -0.2 on 74 shots; the data carries 10% of the weight, the league the rest (about 580 shots to weight the player one half)

Company (linemates / opponents)average / averageteammates +0.6, opponents -0.3 points of relative chance share, weighted by seconds shared

Start +/- (goals begun on his shift)201 of them were scored after he had changed off

On the ice for22 for, 15 againstthe plus/minus view, for comparison

Giveaways that led to a goal0his own turnovers inside the sequence, over 8.7 hours on the ice

Line or pairLine 3his rank by 5-on-5 ice time within the club, most common over 16 games

LinematesBoone Jenner, Isac Lundeströmshared 31% and 18% of his 5-on-5 time

Matchup45% vs first lines45% against the other club's first line (sheltered)

Shutdown (drive, defence, deployment removed)+0.59offence the same way +0.17; zone starts, opponent quality and first-line share removed by a league-wide fit

Two-way (offence + defence, deployment removed)+0.76chances created minus chances allowed per 60, against his club without him; a fast-paced player can allow more and still win here

Penalty kill4%4% of his club's penalty kill (rarely used) · 9 shorthanded minutes

Matchup rating (Elo)1582above the league middle · results by who he faced over 8.3 hours of 5-on-5; not enough time against top-rated opponents to say

Finish rating (Elo)1503above the league middle · 6 goals on 74 shots worth 6.1 expected; rated against the goalies and the chances actually faced, so the same goal counts more against a strong goalie from a poor spot

In the play-by-play27.8 per 60how often the league's feed names him on the puck (the moments a caller says a name): 52th percentile of forwards; the feed never records carries or passes that do not end in a goal

Shot-lane rating (Elo)1534below the league middle · 70 of 92 attempts got through (76%), rated against the defenders on the ice

Lane defence rating (Elo, unit)1497above the league middle · 125 of 408 attempts faced were blocked while he was on (31%); shared with the four others on the ice

Turnover balance-1.15 per 609 takeaways, 19 giveaways (3 in his own end) over 8.7 hours; recorded by the league's scorers, so counts differ by rink

Blocked shots and hits2.9 · 6.0 per 6025 blocks, 52 hits given, 31 taken, 8 penalties taken

Real points111 empty-net point left out · 6 goals, 4 primary and 2 secondary assists · 0 on the power play

How these measures are defined, and where they stop.

Advanced scoring · 2025-26

Goals, assists and plus/minus, weighted by what they changed

Every goal counts the win probability it added, scaled so the average goal is 1.0: a late tying goal counts several, a goal at 6-1 or into an empty net late counts little. Plus/minus also credits the players on the ice when the goal's sequence began.

Advanced goals (aG)4.7from 6 goals · 0 clutch (worth twice an average goal or more) · +5.4 above the chances they came from

Advanced primary assists (aA1)4.1from 4 primary assists

Advanced secondary assists (aA2)2.2from 2 secondary assists; kept apart, not guessed at

Advanced points11.1against 12 scoresheet points

Advanced plus/minus (a+/-)+5.4on the ice for 24 goals for and 16 against, each weighted by what it changed · 1 of the goals for began on his shift after he had changed off · +0.62 per 60

Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games

Danton Heinen, 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.

Seasons on file102016-17 to 2025-26

Best season48.62017-18, age 22, 77 games

Latest season19.7expected 9.7 to 42.7

Measured labels1exceeded ceiling

his seasonexpected range from his earlier seasonsposition, 10th to 90th percentile by ageposition median

Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.

What the numbers found

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 0-62); he logged 66, 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 62). He logged 66 hours, above the 90th percentile.

Every season

Season	Age	GP	Level	Expected (80%)
2016-17	21	8	0.0	4.2 to 81.1
2017-18	22	77	48.6	1.5 to 48.0
2018-19	23	77	34.7	33.2 to 63.7
2019-20	24	67	30.6	25.5 to 55.7
2020-21	25	43	26.2	17.2 to 50.5
2021-22	26	76	32.6	14.3 to 45.2
2022-23	27	65	25.1	15.3 to 45.9
2023-24	28	74	36.9	10.1 to 40.4
2024-25	29	79	28.5	16.0 to 45.8
2025-26	30	46	19.7	9.7 to 42.7

Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29

Comparables at the same age

Who looked like this at 27 to 30

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.

Comparables found8

Went on to two or more NHL seasons7 of 8

Their later peak (adjusted pts/game)0.33median across the comparables; this player's own line is below

This player so far: age 16 BCMML 1.10 → age 17 PJHL 1.14 → age 18 BCHL 1.09 → age 19 NCAA 1.13 → age 20 NCAA 1.17 → age 21 AHL 0.69 → age 22 NHL 0.61 → age 23 NHL 0.44 → age 24 NHL 0.38 → age 25 NHL 0.33 → age 26 NHL 0.43 → age 27 NHL 0.34 → age 28 NHL 0.49 → age 29 NHL 0.35 → age 30 NHL 0.15

All 3 columns shown

Player	Distance (lower is closer)	What he did afterwards
Colin BlackwellC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.05	age 31 NHL 0.27 → age 32 NHL 0.27 → age 33 NHL 0.21
Casey CizikasC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.07	age 31 NHL 0.22 → age 32 NHL 0.26 → age 33 NHL 0.33 → age 34 NHL 0.21 → age 35 NHL 0.22
Nick CousinsC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.09	age 31 NHL 0.30 → age 32 NHL 0.28
Oskar SundqvistC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.10	age 31 NHL 0.30 → age 32 NHL 0.33
Tyler PitlickC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.11	age 31 NHL 0.26 → age 32 NHL 0.12 → age 33 AHL 0.35 → age 34 NHL 0.06
Sam CarrickC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.11	age 31 NHL 0.14 → age 32 NHL 0.18 → age 33 NHL 0.25 → age 34 NHL 0.17
Alex BelzileR · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.11	age 31 NHL 0.45 → age 32 AHL 0.37 → age 33 AHL 0.39 → age 34 AHL 0.43
Mattias JanmarkC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.11	age 31 NHL 0.17 → age 32 NHL 0.23 → age 33 NHL 0.19

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.

Atlantic

Metropolitan

Central

Pacific