Ryan Donato

StaTuesday: Wild's Ryan Donato firing away

Published Feb. 26, 2019 2:30 p.m. ET

After spending a month in the minors, Ryan Donato is getting a shot with the Minnesota Wild.

Acquired in a trade with the Boston Bruins a few days before the deadline, Donato had seemingly fallen out of favor in Boston, where he'd made his impressive pro debut less than a year earlier.

However, it seems that head coach Bruce Boudreau and co. would like to see exactly what they've got in Donato, the former Harvard star who made headlines at the last Olympics.

The 22-year-old has been a regular for the Wild and a fixture on special teams in three games since the trade, skating 47:46 overall and 6:04 on the power play.

With good reason.

The scouting report on Donato has long been relatively simple: He shoots the puck. A lot.

Donato led the nation at 6.03 shots on goal per game during his final season at Harvard, and was among Team USA's top shooters in PyeongChang in 2018 with 15 shots on goal in five games.

He's had a green light so far in Minnesota.

Donato leads the Wild with 20 shot attempts in all situations since the trade, and ranks second with 17 even-strength shot attempts, behind only Jason Zucker.

SHOT ATTEMPTS, EVEN STRENGTH (LAST 3 GAMES)

Player	TOI	Attempts	Attempts (unblocked)	Scoring chance	Shots	Shot %
Jason Zucker	43:40	18	13	12	10	10.00
Ryan Donato	41:40	17	12	7	7	14.29
Mikael Granlund	45:12	11	10	7	9	11.11
Jordan Greenway	46:12	11	9	7	7	28.57
Jonas Brodin	57:16	10	9	5	8	0.00
Joel Eriksson Ek	45:40	9	8	6	7	0.00
Greg Pateryn	59:13	9	6	2	5	0.00
Jared Spurgeon	66:30	9	5	4	5	0.00
Eric Fehr	24:04	8	7	5	5	0.00
Brad Hunt	31:52	7	6	2	5	0.00
Zach Parise	45:07	6	6	5	6	16.67
Luke Kunin	42:15	6	5	5	4	25
Ryan Suter	66:58	6	4	2	0	-
Anthony Bitetto	32:43	5	4	1	2	0.00
Marcus Foligno	35:13	5	4	3	3	0.00
Pontus Aberg	30:37	5	4	2	3	0.00
Eric Staal	46:01	4	2	1	1	0.00
J.T. Brown	26:58	4	3	2	2	0.00

The damage so far: one goal, three assists, a plus-3 and an overtime win over the St. Louis Blues.

Minnesota currently ranks 17th in the league with 31.7 shots on goal per game this season, and 19th with 30.8 shots on goal per game over the past three seasons.

Donato hasn't put much of a dent in those numbers yet, but it's a start.

Statistics via Natural Stat Trick

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Ryan Donato

Minnesota Wild

National Hockey League