Joel Eriksson Ek has spent years being one of the Wild’s most dependable pieces, the kind of center Minnesota can trust in just about any situation. But with the team pushing into a Stanley Cup window, the burden on him looks heavier than ever - and maybe heavier than the roster can reasonably ask.
The biggest problem is simple: the Wild still don’t have the center depth they want. Minnesota has been linked to impact names such as Vincent Trocheck and Dylan Larkin, but at this point a deal looks like a long shot.
Danila Yurov could take a meaningful step forward this year, and Ryan Hartman remains a reliable option, but those two are battling to center the Kirill Kaprizov line. That leaves Eriksson Ek as the only center locked into the top six, which effectively makes him the team’s top center by default.
That’s a tough assignment for a player whose value is built first on defense. Eriksson Ek has earned Selke votes for six straight years, and his two-way game has made him one of Minnesota’s most valuable players since his NHL debut in 2016-17.
The issue is that the best defensive centers on true contenders usually bring more offense than Eriksson Ek does. He contributes, but not at the level of the elite names that usually anchor championship teams.
The standard for that kind of role is high. Anze Kopitar, Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Toews, and Aleksander Barkov all fit the same broad mold: defense-first centers who live in the Selke conversation and still produce enough offensively to drive a contender.
They also happen to have led their teams to championships, most of them multiple times. The point isn’t to diminish Eriksson Ek.
It’s to show what a true top two-way center on a Cup team usually looks like, and why Minnesota is asking him to fill a spot that may not match his game.
A better comparison for Eriksson Ek may be a player like Anton Lundell, who has a career .56 points per game, or Phillip Danault at .52 ppg. That’s the profile of a shutdown center who can chip in offensively.
It’s a valuable player, no question. It just isn’t the profile of a team’s best center on a contender.
For most of Eriksson Ek’s career, that was fine. The Wild were usually a playoff team without much chance of getting beyond the first round.
But after breaking through in the first round last year, Minnesota has entered a different stage. The expectations are higher now, and that means Eriksson Ek is being pushed into a larger role on a roster that otherwise looks like a contender.
That challenge gets even sharper when you look at the line he’s expected to anchor. In camp and preseason, Eriksson Ek skated with Matt Boldy and Blake Coleman. Eriksson Ek and Boldy already have real chemistry, and over the last four seasons that duo has posted a goals-expected-for percentage above 50% each year, no matter who has filled the other wing spot.
Boldy’s growth matters here, too. He still hasn’t reached the 50-goal, 50-assist mark Bill Guerin projected, and if he’s going to hit that next level, Eriksson Ek will need to give more on the offensive end as well.
Then there’s Coleman, the most significant addition the Wild made after missing out on a star forward this offseason. He arrived in St.
Paul in a trade and is entering his age-35 season. He’s been a solid NHL contributor for years, but he has topped 40 points only once.
How he fits will depend heavily on whether he can build chemistry with Boldy and Eriksson Ek, and Eriksson Ek will be the one carrying the heaviest load as the center.
That’s where the concern lives for Minnesota. The Wild want to contend, but they haven’t solved the middle of the ice. So Eriksson Ek is left trying to do more than his ideal role asks for, and that may be stretching him too thin.
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