Nikolaj Ehlers

71 points, 168 pounds, and a shot chart that has never made sense.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2015-16	WPG	72	15	23	38	+3	21	4	0	0	167	9.0	16:06
2016-17	WPG	82	25	39	64	+1	38	5	0	4	204	12.3	17:29
2017-18	WPG	82	29	31	60	+14	26	7	0	7	231	12.6	16:05
2018-19	WPG	62	21	16	37	+2	15	2	0	4	158	13.3	15:46
2019-20	WPG	71	25	33	58	+14	30	3	1	5	203	12.3	16:31
2020-21	WPG	47	21	25	46	+15	15	6	0	5	148	14.2	16:55
2021-22	WPG	62	28	27	55	+18	20	4	0	2	245	11.4	18:04
2022-23	WPG	45	12	26	38	-2	11	3	0	0	132	9.1	15:39
2023-24	WPG	82	25	36	61	+27	29	0	0	7	233	10.7	15:52
2024-25	WPG	69	24	39	63	+14	17	6	0	5	174	13.8	15:48
2025-26	CAR	82	26	45	71	+8	14	10	0	6	207	12.6	16:36
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	756	251	340	591	+114	236	50	1	45	2102	11.9	16:27

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

26 goals and 45 assists in all 82 games — 71 points, plus-8, at 16:36 a night with 10 power-play goals. 12 points in his last 10 games.

The Finesse Game

Among the three or four fastest players in the league and it has never dimmed. He beats defencemen wide from a standing start and he is at his best carrying the puck through the neutral zone at speed, which is where most of his 45 assists begin.

The shooting is the curiosity. Only 19 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside 20 feet — the lowest share of any Carolina forward — with 32 per cent from beyond 40 and a median of 34. He scored 26 goals anyway, on a quick release from distance.

He has done this his whole career. It works, and it is the reason he has never had the 80-point season the skating suggests.

The Physical Game

6 foot even and 168 pounds, which is close to the lightest in the league. 14 penalty minutes in 82 games. He does not go to the net front and he does not win pucks; the entire game is played in open ice by design.

The Intangibles

56.4 per cent of the expected goals, 93rd percentile, and 60.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 99th.

He is 30, in his eleventh season, with 591 points and a reputation for disappearing when the ice tightens. That reputation is the exact thing this book’s playoff work is about: a game built on open ice and clean speed is the game most exposed when a series turns into a checking match.

Carolina signed him to make the regular season easier. Whether he helps in May is a different question and the numbers cannot answer it.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
32.0% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
disciplined· stays out of the box
0.17 penalty minutes a game over 82, 9th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,063 minutes

Expected goals: 56.4%; 94th pct
Shot attempts: 60.6%; 99th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 53 for, 43 against. Expected: 52.8 and 40.8.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

55th

Numbers

94th

The numbers rank him 39 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 82 games

Top speed: 23.1 mph; 88th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.22 a game
Distance: 2.71 miles a game
Hardest shot: 93.6 mph; 94th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 4 goals, 8 assists, 29 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1063 minutes at five-on-five

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, 2025-26

The club: CAR took 55.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.4% — 0.7 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third line, 1,063 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Sean Walker	57.8%	55.3%	56.2%
Jordan Staal	56.0%	56.6%	51.8%
K'Andre Miller	59.7%	54.6%	56.1%

57.8% together, 55.3% for him apart and 56.2% for Walker apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

303 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 26 of them goals. His median goal came from 29 feet. 19% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.