Photo Credit: Colby Spence
We are only 13 games into the 2019-20 NHL regular season but it is safe to say that Nikolaj Ehlers is having a bounce back season. Ehlers has six goals and seven assists which ties him with Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine for the scoring lead on the Jets. Last year Ehlers took until his 24th game (November 29th) to score six goals so he is well ahead of schedule in that regard.
While still relatively early in the season Ehlers’ shooting percentage is currently siting at a career best 14%.
Dimitri Filipovic, whose work can be found on Yahoo & ESPN as well as Hockey PDOCast, put out a list of players who do the most heavy lifting for their respective teams and he has Ehlers tied for 9th:
Players doing the most heavy lifting for their respective teams offensively this season. That Leon Draisaitl number is something else.. pic.twitter.com/WstmhcMeZo
— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) October 31, 2019
As pointed out by Michael Remis of TSN Radio 1290, Ehlers is doing this without as much power play time:
Yup, Ehlers PP TOI/G is considerably less than the other players who have scored a similar percentage of their team’s goals. pic.twitter.com/BobwtnRa0y
— Michael Remis (@mremis) October 31, 2019
When it comes to those all important zone entries, while it is hardly surprising that Ehlers is leading this Jets team, it is impressive that he ranks fifth in the NHL according to hockey analyst Mike Kelly of The Point:
Audio:
Today following practice in San Jose Coach Paul Maurice was asked about the play of Nikolaj Ehlers this season and it is pretty clear that he is excited by the maturity of Ehlers complete game.
