Matt Nieto

Matthew Evan Nieto, a left winger born November 5, 1992, is currently an unrestricted free agent. His most recent team was the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL, where he played while under contract to the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. Over his career, he has had two separate stints with both the San Jose Sharks and the Colorado Avalanche. The Sharks selected him in the second round, 47th overall, of the 2011 NHL entry draft.

Nieto is of Mexican-American heritage. His father, Jesse, works as a longshoreman, and his mother, Mary, is a makeup artist for Nordstrom. He grew up in Long Beach, California, in a rough neighborhood; his mother recalled drive-by shootings and noted that Snoop Dogg once lived nearby, though before Matt was born. At age two, he became interested in skating after watching his sister rollerblade inside the house. His grandfather later gave him a hockey stick, and at three, he started playing roller hockey at the YMCA. As a youth, he played in the 2004 and 2005 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournaments with the Los Angeles Hockey Club, alongside future NHL players Emerson Etem and Rocco Grimaldi. His sister has Down syndrome and autism, and his mother has battled advanced breast cancer.

For high school, Nieto transferred to Salisbury School in Connecticut for his sophomore year. In one season there, he recorded eight goals and ten assists in 28 games, catching the eye of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. He then moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to join the program. During the 2008–09 season, he played for both the under-17 and under-18 teams, tallying 20 goals and 33 assists, then six goals and eight assists, respectively.

The following season, he scored 15 goals and 14 assists for the program’s USHL team, plus one goal for the under-17 squad. After the program, he chose college over major junior hockey, picking Boston University over Boston College on a full scholarship. In his first year, he had ten goals and 13 assists; the next year, 16 goals and 26 assists with a plus-19 rating. In 2012, he scored 18 goals (second-most on the team behind Dan O’Regan) and 19 assists, finishing his Terriers career with 44 goals and 102 points in 115 games.

NHL.com ranked Nieto the 43rd-best prospect and second-best player in Hockey East for the 2011 draft class. Hockey’s Future noted his earlier defensive struggles but praised his improvement, calling him an “explosive speed” player with strong puck handling and passing while in motion, giving him a 7.5/10 talent score. The Sharks made him their first pick of the 2011 draft at 47th overall, making him the first Californian ever selected by the team. Sharks scouting director Tim Burke said they had watched him for over two years, citing his offensive ability on the rush and versatility, including penalty killing.

Nieto signed a three-year, $2.3 million contract with the Sharks on April 1, 2013. That year, he played 11 games for their AHL affiliate, the Worcester Sharks, scoring two goals and four assists with a minus-4 rating and six penalty minutes. He made his NHL debut on October 3, 2013, against the Vancouver Canucks, and scored his first NHL goal on October 8 against Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers, with assists from Joe Pavelski and Tommy Wingels. He was sent back to Worcester on November 25, recalled on December 7, then reassigned to the ECHL’s San Francisco Bulls on December 18, only to be recalled three days later after an injury to Tomáš Hertl. His first Stanley Cup playoff goal came on April 22, 2014, an empty-netter against the Los Angeles Kings.

By the 2016–17 season, Nieto struggled to keep an offensive role among the Sharks’ bottom-six forwards. After just 16 games with two assists, he was placed on waivers and claimed by the Colorado Avalanche on January 5, 2017. To avoid arbitration, he signed a one-year, $1 million contract with the Avalanche on July 25, 2017. In the 2018 season, he set career highs with 74 games played and 15 goals.

That July, Colorado gave him a two-year, $3.95 million deal. After the 2019–20 season, he became a free agent for the first time and returned to the Sharks on a one-year, $700,000 contract on October 13, 2020. In the shortened 2021 season, he added five goals and seven points in 25 games before an injury ended his year. On March 19, 2021, he played his 500th NHL game against the St. Louis Blues, becoming the third California native to reach that milestone, after Brooks Orpik and Jason Zucker. On June 21, 2021, he signed a two-year, $1.7 million extension to stay with the Sharks.