Nico Sturm Has Addressed Two Of the Wild's Greatest Weaknesses

When the Minnesota Wild signed Nico Sturm over the offseason, it wasn’t quite the splash many had hoped for on the Wild’s proverbial Christmas Morning. While it wasn’t the most eye-catching acquisition, the Wild brought Sturm in to fit a particular role. 

The German forward has carved out a niche for himself in the NHL as a defensive specialist, particularly valuable for his strength at the faceoff dot and on the penalty kill. Those attributes made him a perfect target for the Wild.

The Wild have struggled at the faceoff dot for several years. 2017-18 was the last time they weren’t in the bottom ten in the league in faceoff percentage. You have to go back to the 2016-17 season to find the last time Minnesota was successful on more than 50% of its faceoffs. 

Minnesota has also been a weak penalty-killing team, especially in the last two seasons. The Wild have been a bottom-three team in penalty-killing percentage in each of the previous two years, with a 74.5% success rate in 2023-24 and 72.4% in 2024-25. 

With such obvious deficiencies, bringing a player like Sturm in made a lot of sense, but Sturm’s second stint with the Wild got off to a bumpy start when the forward got injured on the first day of training camp.

After the injury, it became natural to wonder whether Sturm was going to make the impact on this team that they brought him in for. Fortunately, he’s checked many of the boxes he needed to since returning from surgery. 

The best place to start to see Nico Sturm’s impact is on the penalty kill. At the beginning of the season, the Wild’s penalty kill was as bad as it had been the last few years. Nico Sturm’s injury kept him out of the lineup until November 23. From the beginning of the season until that time, the Wild were only killing off penalties at a 74% rate. That was fifth-worst in the league at the time.

Since Sturm rejoined the team, the Wild have been much better down a man, with an 82.1% penalty kill rate (good for 12th in the league in that time span).

Of course, there are a lot of factors that have led the Wild’s PK to be respectable. Minnesota’s goaltenders have played excellently this year. Jared Spurgeon has stepped up after his season got off to a rocky start. 

Still, Sturm deserves credit for the turnaround. The defensive specialist is averaging 1:35 of penalty kill time on ice per game, third on the team among forwards. Sturm’s defensive play has been an enormous boon to the Wild's PK, but he’s also played his role well at even strength. When you analyze some of Sturm’s underlying numbers, you get some interesting results.

The first thing that’s apparent is that he does a reasonably good job at producing quality possessions for the Wild. With a higher on-ice expected goals percentage than off-ice, Minnesota is generally winning Sturm’s minutes. 

An intriguing aspect of Sturm’s play is that his possession numbers aren’t spectacular. A team’s fourth-line center often has pretty heinous possession analytics, so that’s expected. What sets this apart is that, even though the other team is possessing the puck more with Sturm on the ice, the Wild are still getting the better of his minutes. 

There are 13 players on the Wild with an on-ice expected goals % greater than 50%. Sturm is tied with Yakov Trenin for the lowest Corsi For rating among those players. How does that happen?

The explanation lies in Sturm’s great defense. Other teams get shots against Sturm, but they aren’t great ones. According to Natural Stat Trick, 16 forwards have skated more than 50 minutes for the Wild this season. Nico Sturm is fifth-best in expected goals against per 60 minutes. 

While the Wild brought Sturm in for his defensive skills, it helps that he’s also been able to chip in offensively. Sturm has scored two goals and added three assists in 15 games. Those aren’t elite stats, but his .33 points per game is the third-best pace of his career. That offensive output is backed up by his underlying numbers, where his 2.98 expected goals per 60 is the best of his career.

All that being said, Sturm’s season hasn’t been perfect. The biggest disappointment has been his performance in the faceoff dot. As of this writing, Sturm is winning just 49.3% of his faceoffs. It isn’t a terrible number, but it’s well below his career average of 56.2%. He’s still one of the strongest on the team, given that the Wild are second-worst in the league with a 45.77% winning rate. If Sturm’s faceoff numbers can get back to where they’ve been in the past, it’ll be crucial help for a team still struggling in the dot.

When the book is written on the Minnesota Wild’s 2025-26 season, their fourth-line center will not be what determines where the story ends. Still, it’s important to give props where they’re due over the course of the season.

Nico Sturm is a fourth-line center who has been a vital part of turning the team’s penalty kill around, is playing solid defense while winning his minutes, and has chipped in offensively. It’s difficult to ask for much more out of the Wild’s defensive specialist.