Minnesota Wild Reveal Bad News Injury Update on Jake Middleton

Unfortunately, all of that changed rather quickly on Thursday night, when Middleton used his wrist to block a point shot from Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard. In the video below, you can see Middleton look down at his wrist/hand right, immediately when the puck ricochets away, and he knows something is wrong.

Jake Middleton is going on Minnesota Wild Long-Term Injured Reserve

Shortly after, the Wild’s top-4 blossoming defenseman skated to the bench, and never returned. On Friday, we got the bad news that Jake Middleton’s injury requires surgery, and a stint on Long-Term Injured Reserve, which means he must miss at least 10 games and 24 total calendar days.

This is just the latest blow the Minnesota Wild have taken, on the injury front. They’ve lost some of their best talents for large stretches of the 2024-25 season, including Jared Spurgeon early on, then forward staples like Mats Zuccarello and Joel Eriksson Ek, more recently.

Thursday, all three of those guys were back in the lineup, but the defense core was still missing Jonas Brodin. And now, that same group has lost Jake Middleton, just a quarter of the way through what was looking like by far the best season in his 6+ year NHL career.