Returning regular · 2025-26

Nico Sturm

Minnesota Wild · C · L shot · age 31 at the dated snapshot.

Team: MIN
Lane: C
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.

Games49

Goals5

Assists6

Points11

Even strength10all even-strength points

Power play0

Short handed1

Empty net3

5v5 points / 600.953

Average TOI10:57

PP TOI0:01

PK TOI1:46

Organizational context

6 C regulars in MIN

The all-team median is 7. MIN’s farm system ranks #26 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 shots62

Expected goals6.811.0% per shot

Goals5

Finishing−1.8goals 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 quality41%2.66 expected goals for and 3.86 against per 60 minutes

Drive, this season only—at 5-on-5, over 7.3 hours: his share minus the club's share when he is off the ice · with its 80% band: -3.6 pts, 80% band -8.3 to 1.3 pts

Setup (chances his passes produced)0.78 xG2 primary assists; 0.391 expected goals per pass on average, 0.088 per 60. A pass to a tap-in counts more than a pass to a point shot.

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

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

Isolated impact (RAPM), offence / defence-0.04 / +0.04expected goals per 60 at 5v5 with every teammate, opponent, score state, venue and zone start held as columns of one ridge regression; ± 0.11 / 0.11 SE over 441 minutes

Offensive-zone starts25%of his faceoffs in either end zone; heavy offensive use lifts the numbers above

Chance share, score-and-venue adjusted (5v5)49%raw 48%; 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)-0.6raw -3.4 on 62 shots; the data carries 8% of the weight, the league the rest (about 580 shots to weight the player one half)

Company (linemates / opponents)average / averageteammates 0.0, opponents +0.4 points of relative chance share, weighted by seconds shared

Start +/- (goals begun on his shift)91 of them were scored after he had changed off

On the ice for14 for, 26 againstthe plus/minus view, for comparison

Giveaways that led to a goal0his own turnovers inside the sequence, over 8.9 hours on the ice

Line or pairLine 3his rank by 5-on-5 ice time within the club, most common over 32 games

LinematesYakov Trenin, Marcus Folignoshared 43% and 33% of his 5-on-5 time

Matchup46% vs first lines46% against the other club's first line (sheltered)

Penalty kill38%38% of his club's penalty kill · 85 shorthanded minutes

Matchup rating (Elo)1465below the league middle · results by who he faced over 7.3 hours of 5-on-5; not enough time against top-rated opponents to say

In the play-by-play23.3 per 60how often the league's feed names him on the puck (the moments a caller says a name): 17th percentile of forwards; the feed never records carries or passes that do not end in a goal

Faceoff rating (Elo)1574above the league middle · 196–159 (55%), rated by whom he beat and lost to

Penalty-kill rating (Elo)1481bottom tenth of the league · 10.2 expected goals allowed per 60 shorthanded over 85 minutes, rated against the power-play units faced

Lane defence rating (Elo, unit)1237below the league middle · 85 of 531 attempts faced were blocked while he was on (16%); shared with the four others on the ice

Turnover balance-1.12 per 6010 takeaways, 20 giveaways (7 in his own end) over 8.9 hours; recorded by the league's scorers, so counts differ by rink

Blocked shots and hits1.9 · 5.9 per 6017 blocks, 53 hits given, 23 taken, 8 penalties taken · faceoffs 55% of 355

Real points83 empty-net points left out · 5 goals, 2 primary and 4 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)4.6from 5 goals · 1 clutch (worth twice an average goal or more) · +3.8 above the chances they came from

Advanced primary assists (aA1)1.6from 2 primary assists

Advanced secondary assists (aA2)3.0from 4 secondary assists; kept apart, not guessed at

Advanced points9.2against 11 scoresheet points

Advanced plus/minus (a+/-)-19.9on the ice for 17 goals for and 28 against, each weighted by what it changed · 1 of the goals for began on his shift after he had changed off · -2.23 per 60

Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games

Nico Sturm, 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 file82018-19 to 2025-26

Best season27.42020-21, age 25, 50 games

Latest season17.0expected −2.5 to 30.5

Measured labels0none that passed its test

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

No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.

Projection at the draft

No draft projection: projections exist for players drafted from 2005 on who have season lines on file.

Every season

Season	Age	GP	Level	Expected (80%)
2018-19	23	2	0.0	−16.9 to 101.7
2019-20	24	6	26.3	−5.0 to 74.9
2020-21	25	50	27.4	6.4 to 55.4
2021-22	26	74	20.3	11.9 to 44.2
2022-23	27	74	26.1	6.3 to 36.4
2023-24	28	63	15.6	7.2 to 38.1
2024-25	29	62	17.5	0.5 to 32.0
2025-26	30	49	17.0	−2.5 to 30.5

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)0.30median across the comparables; this player's own line is below

This player so far: age 12 Schüler-BL 0.79 → age 13 Schüler-BL 1.35 → age 14 Schüler-BL 1.80 → age 15 Jugend-BL 0.50 → age 16 DNL 0.23 → age 17 DNL 1.00 → age 18 DNL 1.42 → age 19 NAHL 0.77 → age 20 USHL 0.68 → age 21 NCAA 0.54 → age 22 NCAA 0.93 → age 23 NCAA 1.15 → age 24 AHL 0.58 → age 25 NHL 0.34 → age 26 NHL 0.32 → age 27 NHL 0.35 → age 28 NHL 0.21 → age 29 NHL 0.28 → age 30 NHL 0.22

All 3 columns shown

Player	Distance (lower is closer)	What he did afterwards
Radek FaksaC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.06	age 31 NHL 0.21 → age 32 NHL 0.29
Sean KuralyC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.07	age 31 NHL 0.29 → age 32 NHL 0.21 → age 33 NHL 0.27
Nick CousinsC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.07	age 31 NHL 0.30 → age 32 NHL 0.28
Dominic ToninatoC · matched at ages 28, 29, 30	0.07	age 31 AHL 0.27 → age 32 AHL 0.38
Zemgus GirgensonsC · matched at ages 28, 29, 30	0.07	age 31 NHL 0.07 → age 32 NHL 0.27
Justin DowlingC · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.08	age 31 NHL 0.18 → age 32 AHL 0.37 → age 33 AHL 0.32 → age 34 NHL 0.14 → age 35 AHL 0.29
Nicolas DeslauriersL · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.08	age 31 NHL 0.16 → age 32 NHL 0.15 → age 33 NHL 0.07 → age 34 NHL 0.10 → age 35 NHL 0.04
Joel ArmiaR · matched at ages 27, 28, 29, 30	0.08	age 31 NHL 0.36 → age 32 NHL 0.37

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