The Minnesota Wild have announced that superstar forward Kirill Kaprizov is out for 1-2 weeks with a lower-body injury. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson will have an MRI done tomorrow and miss “at least a couple of weeks”, according to Michael Russo.
These are monumental blows to a Wild team that was already teetering on the edge of collapse. The Wild have a record of 16-15-4 and sit four points out of the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference. Kaprizov currently leads the team in points, with 34 in 34 games. He is the lifeblood of the team and all of the offence flows through him. It will be impossible to replace him during his absence and they’ll have to get creative to keep the offence going.
Gustavsson is also one of the core members of this Wild team and the starting goaltender. He played 22 games this year and has mediocre stats with a 2.95 GAA and .903 SV% but earned the starters crease after veteran Marc-Andre Fleury struggled even more than him.
According to MoneyPuck.com, the Wild have a 32% chance of making the playoffs which aren’t good odds to start with, but it could be even worse because they likely haven’t accounted for the Kaprizov and Gustavsson injuries. On the brighter side of this, the Gustavsson injury provided Fleury with an opportunity to play the 1,000 game of his career as he moves up the goaltending games played leaderboard.
Fleury has a chance now to regain control of the Wild crease and finish the season strong if he can string together a few strong efforts during Gustavsson’s absence. In his last game against the Winnipeg Jets, Fleury allowed three goals on 29 shots which isn’t bad but not enough to get his team the win. With the injury to Kaprizov, he’ll have to be a wall in net to buy his team a few wins.
The Wild have called up Zane McIntyre on an emergency basis to backup Fleury in the NHL. McIntyre has struggled in the AHL this year, winning only one out of 12 games this year. The Wild have a potential NHL starter in Jesper Wallstedt who wasn’t called up for whatever reason. He’s been solid in the AHL and will make his NHL debut sooner rather than later for the Wild.
More must-reads: