This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Joel Eriksson Ek
Minnesota Wild Center
A 55.2 per cent chance share — the best on the club — in 46 games.
| 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 | MIN | 46 | 14 | 15 | 29 | +9 | 22 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 140 | 10.0 | 19:46 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 544 | 136 | 163 | 299 | +66 | 242 | 42 | 3 | 19 | 1348 | 10.1 | 16:58 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
14 goals and 15 assists in 46 games for 29 points, plus-9, on 19:46 a night with 5 on the power play.
55.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 91st percentile — the best figure on the club — with on-ice goals of 30-16 against an expected 24.4-19.8. 46 games is the number: he has now missed significant time in three of the last four seasons.
47 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet.
The Finesse Game
Limited by the standards of a first-line centre and entirely adequate for what he does. 140 shots in 46 games is a high volume and 10 per cent conversion is a fair rate from the locations he takes.
15 assists says the playmaking is not the strength. He creates by winning pucks and getting to the net, and everything about his offence is a byproduct of the physical game.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 207, and among the more punishing centres in the league. He hits, he goes to the net front and stays, and he takes an enormous amount of contact.
22 penalty minutes over 46 games. The body is the whole projection: the way he plays has now cost him parts of three seasons and there is no sign of him adjusting.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick, ten seasons in one organisation, and a Selke-calibre defensive centre when he is upright.
At 28 the projection is 60 games and elite two-way play within them. A club that has lost Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek for half a season each has learned what it looks like without both.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 581 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55.2%
- 92nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.7%
- 80th 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: 30 for, 16 against. Expected: 24.4 and 19.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 1 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 82 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
2024-25 · 581 minutes at five-on-five
- Matt Boldy62%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- MIN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.2% — 6.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 581 minutes at five-on-five — 21st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Boldy | 59.7% | 47.5% | 51.2% |
| Marcus Johansson | 50.8% | 59.3% | 48.8% |
| Brock Faber | 49.2% | 59.4% | 46.4% |
59.7% together, 47.5% for him apart and 51.2% for Boldy apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
183 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.