By Tony Abbott -
Is the Minnesota Wild's long State-of-Hockey-wide faceoff nightmare over?
Since Mikko Koivu and Eric Staal left St. Paul after the 2019-20 season, the team went from being middle-of-the-pack clubs in the NHL to one of the worst. Far from the dominant faceoff force they were when Koivu was at his peak, the Wild have been struggling not to be bottom-five in the league.
The results over the last five seasons speak for themselves.
Minnesota Wild Faceoff Percentage, by year:
2020-21: 46.5% (28th of 31)
2021-22: 46.7% (27th of 32)
2022-23: 47.7% (26th)
2023-24: 47.3% (26th)
2024-25: 46.7% (27th)
You can (and we have) argued that this hasn't mattered in the grand scheme of things. The Wild made the playoffs in four of those five seasons, and while you can shrug that off due to their lack of postseason success, they're 11th in the NHL over that time with a .618 points percentage in the regular season. That's gotta mean something. It is also notable that the teams tied for first in points percentage are the Carolina Hurricanes (third in faceoffs over that time) and the Colorado Avalanche (who are 26th).
Still, that hasn't stopped faceoffs from being a point of consternation for Wild fans and media. There are times, especially in the playoffs, when they really bit Minnesota. For example, the Dallas Stars' power play ran roughshod on the penalty kill during the 2023 playoffs. The Stars won a whopping 70% of their draws on the man advantage.
That's why Nico Sturm, a fourth-line center, is going to be getting some major attention coming into the season. Sturm was a career 51.3% in the dot during his first stint in Minnesota -- one of just four Wild centers to take 200-plus draws since 2019-20 to be above 50%. However, his faceoff legend really took off in San Jose, where he won an incredible 58.6% of his opportunities over nearly three full seasons.
That kind of percentage can pull Minnesota much closer to 50% on the season, as long as centers like Joel Eriksson Ek and Marco Rossi can stay not-too-far below that level. It gives the Wild some faceoff credibility, but how much will that really matter? Now might be a good time to temper our expectations a bit.
Sturm shines the brightest in the faceoff dot at even-strength, with a 59.0% mark over 1,800 even-strength attempts in the past three seasons. That's tied with Jake Evans for the highest percentage in the league for anyone with over 1,500 faceoffs. But even-strength is probably when faceoffs matter the least. These aren't situational draws, the have-to-have-it moments. They're at times when possession changes quickly, and if you don't get the puck when it drops, you'll likely have it back soon enough.
Especially for a fourth-liner.
If Sturm was a top-line center, giving first crack at the puck to Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy at even-strength? Maybe that's a slightly bigger advantage. But Sturm's going to be winning possessions for players like Yakov Trenin and Marcus Johansson. We're not talking about a lot of extra goals coming from that.
No, where you'd hope Sturm provides that advantage is on the penalty kill, where the stakes of winning a faceoff are higher. And Sturm's not bad at that. He's above water with a 50.5% win rate in 279 faceoffs. With that said, using 200 shorthanded draws as the cutoff, that only ranks 15th of 67 players. Again, not bad! Pretty good! But maybe not a game-changer.
Or maybe even a series changer. The Wild's last three postseasons (all of which came after trading Sturm) have seen them go 40-for-106 in the faceoff dot on the penalty kill. That's 38.3%, almost as bad as it gets. But we're only talking about 35 draws, on average, in a six-game series. What's the difference between going 38.3% over 35 draws and 50.5%?
Five faceoffs. 18 instead of 13. And that’s if Sturm took every draw.
Moreover, that's if Sturm's regular-season dominance on a last-place team is transferrable to high-stakes playoff games. We haven't seen much to suggest that's the case. Admittedly, we're dealing with small sample sizes, but Sturm has taken 115 faceoffs during the postseason, during stints with the Wild, Colorado Avalanche, and Florida Panthers. What's his record on those?
43 wins, 74 losses. A 37.4% record.
Look at the breakdown below.
Nico Sturm, Playoff Faceoff%, by team:
MIN: 40.0% (6-for-15)
COL: 30.8% (12-for-39)
FLA: 41.0% (25-for-61)
That's pretty significantly worse than the Wild's 46.7% mark in their past three postseasons. The percentage doesn't get better when you account for Sturm being a penalty killer, a role where faceoffs can be much harder (and more crucial) to win. Sturm won just eight of his 24 shorthanded draws with Florida in the postseason last year, and 11 of the 33 he's had in his career. That's a 33.3% win rate that's... yup, worse than the Wild as a team over that time.
The good news is, being bad in the faceoff dot didn't stop Sturm from effectively killing penalties. He allowed just two goals in about 22 minutes, which is a 5.56 goals against per hour that is less than half the rate the Wild have given up in their past three playoffs (12.04 goals against per hour). Sturm is a big body who can defend well, which will be an upgrade over the competitive but physically overmatched Freddy Gaudreau.
Sturm is going to help, but it might not be exactly as we think. His role as a fourth-liner, combined with his elite stats in San Jose, not following him elsewhere, makes it difficult to believe that he'll solve the Wild's faceoff woes. But just as we're skeptical that Sturm can fix the Wild in the dot, we're skeptical that this is much of an issue to begin with.
Remember: the Sharks were one of the worst teams in the NHL when Sturm was winning 60% of his draws, and the Wild have been a consistent playoff team while struggling in the dot. What Sturm can offer with his defense and speed once the play actually begins will be much more important than anything that happens the moment the puck drops.
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