This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Joel Eriksson Ek
Minnesota Wild Center
Three hundred and forty-seven attempts at a median of fifteen feet, which is where a 6-3 centre should be shooting from.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | MIN | 15 | 3 | 4 | 7 | +1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 20.0 | 10:37 |
| 2017-18 | MIN | 75 | 6 | 10 | 16 | +2 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 124 | 4.8 | 12:47 |
| 2018-19 | MIN | 58 | 7 | 7 | 14 | -7 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 111 | 6.3 | 13:30 |
| 2019-20 | MIN | 62 | 8 | 21 | 29 | +7 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 102 | 7.8 | 15:43 |
| 2020-21 | MIN | 56 | 19 | 11 | 30 | +16 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 119 | 16.0 | 17:03 |
| 2021-22 | MIN | 77 | 26 | 23 | 49 | +16 | 28 | 12 | 0 | 3 | 223 | 11.7 | 18:35 |
| 2022-23 | MIN | 78 | 23 | 38 | 61 | +4 | 44 | 12 | 2 | 1 | 247 | 9.3 | 19:00 |
| 2023-24 | MIN | 77 | 30 | 34 | 64 | +18 | 60 | 12 | 1 | 5 | 267 | 11.2 | 20:32 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 498 | 122 | 148 | 270 | +57 | 220 | 37 | 3 | 18 | 1208 | 10.1 | 16:43 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
77 games, 30 goals and 34 assists for 64 points, 12 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 60 penalty minutes, 20:32 a night and plus-18. He took 54.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,021 minutes, the 86th percentile, and his ice went 57-42 against an expectation of 45.18-37.30.
Twelve goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and five more conceded than they called for. Thirty goals on the hardest matchup assignment this club gives out.
The Finesse Game
347 attempts at a median of 15 feet with 55 per cent of them from inside 20, converted at 11.2 per cent against a career 10.1.
Of the ten men in this edition who shot from closer than he did, only Zach Hyman and Chris Kreider took more attempts. 148 career assists in 498 games. There is no distance shot and there does not need to be one; he arrives in the blue paint and stays there until the puck does.
The Physical Game
He is 6-3 and 207 and cannot be moved out of the front of a net.
60 penalty minutes in 77 games at twenty and a half a night is an ordinary rate for a centre who forechecks this hard. He takes the defensive-zone draw, kills penalties, and wins the wall against anybody.
The Intangibles
Twentieth overall in 2015 out of Karlstad, eight seasons, and 270 points in 498 games, all of it for one organisation.
He is 27 and has gone 26, 23 and 30 goals in the last three seasons while taking the defensive assignment. That combination is rarer than the point totals suggest.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,021 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.8%
- 86th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.2%
- 73rd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 57 for, 42 against. Expected: 45.2 and 37.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 8 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1021 minutes at five-on-five
- Matt Boldy68%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- MIN took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.8% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,021 minutes at five-on-five — 61st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Boldy | 56.6% | 50.4% | 56.2% |
| Brock Faber | 52.9% | 56.6% | 49.2% |
| Kirill Kaprizov | 61.3% | 48.6% | 52.1% |
56.6% together, 50.4% for him apart and 56.2% for Boldy apart. He was worse away from Boldy, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Boldy did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
347 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 29 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.