Article: Nico Sturm Is A Small But Meaningful Upgrade Over Freddy Gaudreau

[Bekki Antonelli]

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[Pewterschmidt]

Nah, just more German.  He’s a bubble nhl’r just like Fred. 

[Pewterschmidt]

Sturm has a worse offense, defense, and net rating.
 

Jesus Christ!

 Think, Nick bugstad meets Tyler P. Ennis 

[Patrick]

Sturm's ratings should be taken with a grain of salt because he played for the Sharks.  With the Wild they should improve.

Gaudreau's ratings will likely fall as he goes to play for the Kraken.

If Sturm can stay healthy, I think this is a very nice upgrade.  Helps the PK and the bottom six.  It also gives a big defensive body that Hynes can use instead of Ek, saving wear and tear on one of our most important players. 

[IllicitFive]

Is Sturm the savior of the christmas colors? No, but " However, as a 3rd or 4th liner, Sturm’s primary role is to prevent goals rather than score them, and he exceeds Gaudreau in those stats. Although Gaudreau has a better overall defensive rating, Sturm outperformed him in goals against and the penalty kill." 
This is his role, actually win some damn faceoffs in the Dzone, especially on the penalty kill. He is also a bigger body, though I am not 100% sure he uses it the way we would like. If he can win faceoffs, and help to improve the PK, then sounds like a win to me for a 4th line guy.

 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

The Athletic's Scott Wheeler did a re-ranking of the 2022 draft class and has the Wild with 3 first round players, listing Jiricek at #14, Yurov at #15, and Ohgren at #26(one spot behind Conor Geekie, who had been originally selected at #11).

The Wild players initially went #6, #24, and #19(Ohgren).

The Wild attained them by using picks #19 and #24 from the 2022 draft, and pick #20 from the 2025 draft(along with a few other picks, but just the 1 first round pick in the Jiricek trade).

All 3 are likely to see significant playing time for the 25-26 Wild.

Along with those guys, I suspect we'll see a lot of Buium(#12 from 2024 draft), and Jesper Wallstedt(pick #20 from the 2021 draft).

It's been a long time coming, but the youth movement, and their development, should be a huge story for the upcoming season. They have great veterans to help these guys along the way. If they can stay healthy, they could make the playoffs fairly easily.

Riley Heidt should get some seasoning in the AHL to see if he might be able to help the NHL team down the road.  Lambos has been there and should be getting close to the NHL.  Stramel will play his final season at Michigan State and might be ready for a bottom 6 role in a couple of years. Ryder Ritchie will ply his craft in the NCAA this year, which should be good experience for him against an older age group of talented players.

Should be an exciting year, once Kaprizov and Rossi sign new deals.

[Scalptrash]

I was never a fan of Freddy, but Sturm sure reads like a downgrade. Other than his size, of course, which is the only thing that matters to Billy.

51% in faceoffs for Florida. Expect around the same with the Wild, maybe less. Teams play the Wild a lot more competitively than the Sharks and especially in the loaded Central Division.

Edited 4 hours ago by Scalptrash

[Will D. Ness]

Just now, Imyourhuckleberry said:

It's been a long time coming, but the youth movement, and their development, should be a huge story for the upcoming season.

100%.  Staying healthy is big too but at least we have cap space and more depth this season.