Wild activate Vladimir Tarasenko, reassign Hunter Haight

The Minnesota Wild announced on Saturday that veteran forward Vladimir Tarasenko has been activated off of injured reserve. In a corresponding move, the team reassigned forward Hunter Haight to their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild.

Tarasenko had been on injured reserve since Nov. 20, with his placement made retroactive to Nov. 14. Tarasenko has not appeared in a game since Nov. 11. Tarasenko has been dealing with a lower-body injury, one that has caused him to miss a total of seven games.

Before his injury, Tarasenko had gotten off to a decent start to his Wild tenure. The 33-year-old signed a one-year, $4.75M deal with the Wild this past summer, coming off of an underwhelming campaign with the Detroit Red Wings. Tarasenko scored 11 goals and 33 points, which are passable numbers for a player operating within a specific role, but are well below the standards Tarasenko set earlier in his career.

Before his injury, Tarasenko had scored 10 points in 18 games for the Wild, which is a 46-point, 82-game pace. That’s a notable improvement over his production from last season, even if it is not quite the kind of production hockey fans grew accustomed to seeing out of Tarasenko during his days as a star winger for the St. Louis Blues.

Getting Tarasenko back is a positive development for a Wild team that has been on a roll recently. They’ve relied heavily on the offensive contributions of a few key players (namely stars Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy) so getting Tarasenko back to full health should help deepen their attack.

As for Haight, his spot on the Wild’s NHL roster is an unfortunate casualty of Tarasenko’s return to health. The 21-year-old was a 2022 second-round pick who earned himself an NHL recall after a solid start to his pro career. 2024-25 was his debut season in the pro ranks, and he impressed scoring 20 goals and 34 points in 67 games. He was never an overwhelming producer during his days in the OHL, so the productive rookie year in the AHL was certainly encouraging.

The Iowa Wild have struggled as a whole to put the puck in the net this season, ranking No. 30 out of 32 teams in the AHL in terms of total goals scored. That’s why while Haight’s production this year (five points in 13 games) doesn’t jump off the page, it’s important to provide context to the environment he’s playing in to help explain why he’s earned this early recall. At the NHL level, Haight played in two games, averaging under 10 minutes of ice time per game.

While he didn’t get the chance to truly make his mark at the NHL level, it’s likely we’ll see Haight back in the NHL at some point down the line. The team at Elite Prospects ranked Haight the No. 9 prospect in the Wild’s system before the season, with scout David St-Louis praising what he saw as Haight’s “hyper-creative style of play.” The hope moving forward for Haight will be that he can help translate that creativity into more steady AHL production, even as Iowa continues to struggle as a team overall.

Looking at things from a financial lens, Haight will want to earn as many recalls as possible in order to place himself in the best position he can to earn a roster spot on the Wild’s 2026-27 NHL roster. Haight’s entry-level contract enters its final year next season, and unlike previous years on his deal, he won’t earn any signing bonus for next season. (He had a $95K signing bonus on his deal for 2025-26.) Because of that, if Haight can’t make it to the NHL roster for next season, he’ll be stuck in the AHL making an $82.5K AHL salary, a significant reduction from his total compensation in each of the last two seasons.

While there’s more motivation to make it to the NHL than just pure salary difference, Haight’s contract situation further emphasizes his need to make a push for more NHL call-ups beyond this most recent one.