Ryan Hartman Looks Lost

Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-Imagn Images By Tony Abbott - 37 minutes ago Ryan Hartman 's calling card with the Minnesota Wild is his status as an effective rat. The latter half of that gets the attention -- the extra layer of dirtiness that agitates his opponents -- but the effective part of that equation is every bit as important. As useful as the shenanigans can be, trips to the penalty box and the occasional suspension are frustrating to coaches. It's much easier to tolerate from a player who averages 24 goals per 82 games over his past five seasons than a fringe NHLer. If only that last clause were a hypothetical. Hartman has one goal and four points through 19 games, his worst start since his second season in Minnesota (2019-20). And while many slow starts can be chalked up to a small sample size, Hartman's struggles go well beyond his 4.8 shooting percentage. The degree to which Hartman is struggling seems borderline impossible for a team as good as the Wild have been in the early going. As a team, Minnesota is out-scoring opponents 39 to 24 at 5-on-5. Take out Hartman's minutes, and that goes all the way up to a 34 to 12 advantage. On a squad that's fifth in the NFL in controlling expected goal share, Hartman is the Wild's sole player below 40%. When seeing how miserable Hartman is judged against the team, it's no surprise to see his name lumped in with some of the NHL's worst. Take a look at the bottom-10 in the league at Evolving-Hockey's xStandings Points Above Replacement metric. Lowest xSPAR, 2026-27 season: Darnell Nurse , SJS: minus-1.9 Patrick Kane , CHI: minus-1.9 Andrew Copp , DET: minus-1.6 Jonathan Marchessault , NSH: minus-1.6 Brendan Gallagher , VAN: minus-1.5 Noah Laba , NYR: minus-1.4 Barclay Goodrow , SJS: minus-1.3 RYAN HARTMAN, MIN: minus-1.3 Alex Vlasic , CHI: minus-1.2 Connor Murphy , EDM: minus-1.2 The elephant in the room here is that Hartman's role is drastically different from where it's been in seasons past. Last season, he spent about half of his 5-on-5 minutes centering Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello , which was a fairly ideal situation for him. This year? He's spent about half his 5-on-5 time with Bobby Brink , about 40% with Blake Coleman , with Nico Sturm , Tyler Pitlick , and Yakov Trenin rounding out his five most-common linemates. But while that is a huge drop-off in talent, Hartman's stealth superpower during his Wild tenure is that he's been able to slot in just about anywhere in the lineup. Sure, his two highest-scoring seasons were both when he frequently centered Kaprizov and Zuccarello. But Hartman scored 21 goals in 2023-24, a season in which he spent less than a quarter of his 5-on-5 minutes with Dolla Bill Kirill. He was more frequently with Zuccarello (32.8% of his ice time), Marcus Johansson (29.3%), and Marco Rossi (24.5%). We also need to remember how the Wild settled on Hartman for the top-line role in the first place: He worked his way up. Then-coach Dean Evason didn't give Hartman the keys to the top line until November 24 of that year. By then, Hartman had already scored 9 of his 34 goals, carving a path through all four lines in those 18 games. Hartman started out the season between Jordan Greenway and Marcus Foligno , holding that spot until just before Halloween. Then Evason moved him to a line with Kevin Fiala and Freddy Gaudreau for a game before swapping Fiala with Kaprizov. Two games later, Evason shook up his lines again, and Hartman played with Nico Sturm and Brandon Duhaime . After a few games, Hartman landed with Greenway and Rem Pitlick for a few games, then got assigned to center Fiala and Zuccarello before Evason finally swapped out Fiala for Zuccarello. That's an absolute whirlwind, but Hartman was solid no matter who he was with. During that 12-game stretch we just described before that fateful Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello line got together, Hartman had more goals (7) than line combinations (6). How could he do that? And how could he produce so well with Kaprizov and Zuccarello? It's for the same reason: Hartman shoots the puck. That quality gets less attention than the rat-like extracurriculars, but it's much more important. Through the 2020s, only Matt Boldy and Fiala have gotten off unblocked shots at 5-on-5 with more frequency than Hartman's 12.2 per hour (among Wild forwards with 300 minutes). That includes Joel Eriksson Ek , it includes Kaprizov, and it includes Zach Parise . Moreover, Hartman is consistent from year to year at finding those shots, as you'll see from his track record from the last five seasons: Ryan Hartman's 5-on-5 unblocked shot attempts per hour: 2021-22: 12.7 (third on MIN) 2022-23: 13.6 (first) 2023-24: 12.1 (second) 2024-25: 12.8 (second) 2025-26: 12.3 (second) So it's not a huge mystery what's missing this year when you look at... 2026-27: 7.8 (13th!!!) The bottom has fallen out on Hartman's ability to generate looks, and it's happening on a team that is generating the seventh-most unblocked attempts per hour. Michael McCarron is getting more clean looks, Yakov Trenin is doing better than Hartman, and even defenseman Quinn Hughes is out-pacing the forward's production. Hartman's collapse couldn't have come at a worse time for the team. The Wild are looking at making a big swing, which is understood to mean one of two things. One, a salary like Hartman's needs to be moved, and the Wild have had a hard time shopping him when Hartman was on top of his game. It's hard to imagine the takers are out there with him struggling. The second thing it could mean is that acquiring a new player will likely cost the squad young center Danila Yurov . Someone's going to need to step up in his place, and Hartman has the versatility and skill set to help cover for that loss, at least in theory. Even in the immediate, purely on-ice sense, the Wild need to figure out a home for a player who previously could produce anywhere in the lineup. Minnesota is looking like a legitimate title contender, and it's all hands on deck. Hartman has been one of the players quietly driving their success in the past, and he's going to need to rediscover his form if he wants to be part of their current championship aspirations. By Tony Abbott Think you could write a story like this? 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