Nyman again split time between the Seattle Kraken and the AHL Coachella Valley Firebirds in 2025-2026. Last year’s lines of four goals, three assists for seven points in 28 NHL games and 21 goals, 12 assists for 33 points in 39 AHL games show growth in the minors, but mark a slight offensive downgrade at the NHL level.

There’s no cause for concern for the slight NHL dip on it’s face however, last year he played just 12 games, and small sample sizes are ripe for disparate results. The explanation for the offensive dip is a reduction in powerplay usage and overall ice time. Instead of skating with Matty Beniers and Jared McCann for most of his minutes as in the season prior, Nyman saw more regular usage with Shane Wright and Kaapo Kakko. Nyman projects as more of a middle-six contributor than a regular first line player as it is, so seeing what he is capable of in those situations will give us a more realistic read of his future value than a hyper-inflated one that doesn’t mirror expectations.

At the AHL level, Nyman increase his gross offensive output, but the numbers show a dominant offensive force. As per Instat, he was in the 90th percentile on a per-game basis for goals, points, total scoring chances, shots on goal and even blocks among forwards.

For us fantasy managers, we are going to want to keep our eyes on a few things as the season begins. Firstly, breaking camp with the Kraken vs the Firebirds. Deployment equals development, and we want to see Nyman earning meaningful NHL minutes. We’d rather he dominate the AHL than sit in an NHL pressbox, but it’s time we see what he can do with regular NHL shifts. Secondly, we want to see powerplay usage. Nyman isn’t in line for a first unit role with the likes of McCann, Eberle and McMann on the squad, but an injury fill in could earn him looks there. We want to see him drastically increase the power play time on ice beyond the 48 seconds per game he saw. If he is going to see mostly third line usage for now, he will need to make hay on the powerplay to earn opportunity to move up the line up.

His 6-2, 212 frame suggests a longer potential runway for hitting his breakout threshold, so patience will be key for Nyman investors, but we want to see some steps forward. Despite his big frame, he doesn’t lay many hits- less than one a game at the both the NHL and AHL level- so for now, we will need to rely on his offensive performance as managers.