DALLAS — The Minnesota Wild made their early-morning trip Friday without a very important passenger:
Kirill Kaprizov.
The superstar winger did not travel for the team’s showdown with the Dallas Stars due to a lower-body injury. He’s considered him day-to-day. The good news for Minnesota is that this is not considered a long-term thing, though whether Kaprizov returns by Sunday’s game against Ottawa remains to be seen.
“He was a little sore going into the break,” coach John Hynes said. “Talked with the doctors yesterday and, right now, it’s day-to-day. I think we’ll see how he’s feeling each day moving forward.”
Hynes indicated that the lower-body injury isn’t related to the one Kaprizov was dealing with when he missed a game on Nov. 23. It’s also not something that Kaprizov had been playing through for a considerable amount of time before the break. He didn’t look hurt in Monday’s win over Chicago, when he had a goal and five shots in 22-plus minutes to help snap a four-game losing streak.
Hynes was asked Friday if he’s concerned Kaprizov could miss more than one game.
“I don’t have a big concern level as of now,” he said. “Because he was a little bit banged up prior to going into the break. But we all saw how he played against Chicago. We thought it was important, especially for today, (being) banged up, with the schedule. We’ll see how he does today with his (treatment).”
Kaprizov has been one of the league’s top players this season — and its fourth-leading scorer, with 23 goals and 50 points. There was a stretch recently where the Wild went 18 periods without a goal while Kaprizov was not on the ice.
“Probably could have saved myself some time in my pre-scout this morning if I had known that earlier,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said Friday. “When I look at Minnesota, they’re a true sum of their parts as opposed to one player. They have four lines. They defend well. They have great goaltending. Probably a lot like us, you can take a player out of the lineup and still be competitive. But obviously that’s a big guy out for them.”
The Wild’s secondary scoring will become even more critical with Kaprizov out. Matt Boldy, who will move up to play with Marco Rossi and Mats Zuccarello, has two goals and 48 shots in the past 16 games. Marcus Foligno’s 129-foot empty netter against Chicago was his second goal in the past 21. Freddy Gaudreau has two goals in his past 16 games, Marat Khusnutdinov one in his past 32, Ryan Hartman one in his past 24.
“We’ve got to do a lot better,” Foligno said. “All four lines have got to do something. We’ve got to have a balanced attack. Without our best player, it has to be balanced. Everyone has to play smarter. Go to the net and work for the chances. If we can get that thing going now, we’ve got to get other people contributing on a nightly basis. That’s what we needed two weeks ago. We’ve been seeing it, but mostly one and done. We need more from everyone.”
Joel Eriksson Ek is also not on the trip to Dallas, though he skated on his own in Minnesota on Friday and likely will again Saturday. Hynes had said Eriksson Ek was trending toward a return after the three-day Christmas break, and that’s still the case. “He looked really good before the break,” Hynes said. “He’ll get another good skate in today and we’ll see where he’s at tomorrow. He’s progressing to be able to return to play after the break, but when that is we don’t know for sure.”
The Wild are 6-8-1 against teams in playoff spots this season and 2-7-1 against Western Conference playoff teams. So any win in this building would be classified as a huge character win. Filip Gustavsson will be in net for Minnesota, and Jake Oettinger will start for Dallas.
(Photo: Ellen Schmidt / Getty Images)
