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Quinn Hughes, Minnesota Wild (Nick Wosika-Imagn Images)

Wild Fans Can Be Concerned About Possible Olympic Injuries

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers
By Mariah E. Stark | Last updated Feb 13, 2026 9:05 AM ET

With the 2026 Winter Olympics fully underway, the NHL is on its break with no games scheduled until the end of the month. Many players went on a quick vacation or just took some time to rest and recover before the final push for the postseason gets going. The majority of the Minnesota Wild’s lineup was left off of Olympic rosters, but they did send eight players over to Italy.

They have four players on Team Sweden, three on USA, and one on Germany. While it’s a great honor for these players to go and it’s great for Wild fans to get to cheer on their favorite players representing their home countries, it’s also a big worry for many fans.

The Olympics have been a contentious topic for Wild fans thanks to several of their players being prone to injury both with the Wild and with their respective countries. In this article, we’ll look at several reasons Wild fans have to be concerned, but also why it’s so important for these players to play.

Eriksson Ek Crucial to Wild & Sweden

Of course, Wild fans know how important Joel Eriksson Ek is to their lineup, not only in faceoff wins, but also his net front presence, which is almost unmatched by anyone else. The work he does in front of the net also got him into trouble in Team Sweden’s first game of the Olympics, as he took a stick to the face, according to an X post from The Athletic’s Michael Russo. He ended up fine and played the rest of the night, but that is the exact reason fans will worry.

Eriksson Ek may be an extreme case because he’s always putting himself into situations where he’s in the middle of it. Every game, he’s getting cross-checked in the back, high-sticked in the face, elbowed, etc because he tries to screen the goaltender, and the other team’s defense likes to try to get rid of him physically.

Apart from Eriksson Ek putting himself into those situations, he has a knack for getting injured. The last time he played for Sweden in the 4 Nations Faceoff, he came back healthy but was injured a short time later. He hasn’t played a full season once in his career, and he’s already faced some injury issues this season. The Wild need him for the postseason, and it’s safe to say Wild fans are crossing their fingers that he remains healthy, especially while he’s playing for Sweden.

Wild Need Hughes

Similar to Eriksson Ek, Quinn Hughes has struggled to play a full season, although he has done it once in his career. Also like Eriksson Ek, Hughes has already dealt with an injury this season prior to his time with the Wild, and about a week ago, which was reported by The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith, Hughes went to play in the Olympics while dealing with a lower-body injury (from ‘Are Wild overusing Quinn Hughes? Will he re-sign? Time to trade Jonas Brodin? Ask Russo and Smith,’ The Athletic, 2/6/2026).

Obviously, it’s important to Hughes to play on the world stage and represent USA alongside his brother, Jack, but to Wild fans, they need Hughes playing in every game when he returns from the Olympics, and they need him healthy. As many know and have seen, Hughes has become an almost instant hero with the Wild and has become the main reason fans have hope this team will make a deep run in the postseason.

Similar to the NHL postseason, the Olympics bring out another level in most players as they chase that elusive gold medal to show they are the best in the world. In the preliminary round of the Olympics, there has been a lot more physicality, which brings with it a higher chance of injury, especially with a player already battling an injury. The Wild need Hughes to be careful because he’s going to be key to their postseason hopes, and he has already taken several big hits in his first game of this season’s tournament.

Wild Fans Have Reasons to Worry & Have Hope

Obviously, with eight players playing in the Olympics, including their goaltending tandem of Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt, Wild fans have a reason to be worried about their team being healthy after the break. Matt Boldy, Nico Sturm, Eriksson Ek, Marcus Johansson, and Quinn Hughes have all dealt with injuries at some point during this NHL season, which makes a fan even more nervous that they could re-injure themselves or are more prone to injury.

Especially with the news a week ago that Hughes was dealing with an injury as he went over to play in the Olympics, and Eriksson Ek was just getting over an injury right before he left. While there’s a lot of worry about these players getting injured and not being able to help the Wild get to the postseason, there’s also hope they’ll be fine or pull themselves out of play before things get too serious.

A prime example is Jonas Brodin, who was set to play for Team Sweden but unfortunately had an injury that forced him into a tough decision. He ultimately pulled himself from possibly his only chance to play in the Olympics to make sure he was healthy to play down the final stretch for the Wild, as stated by Russo and Smith in an article right before the Olympics (from, ‘Wild insider: On Jonas Brodin and the difficulty of choosing team vs. country for Olympians’, The Athletic, 2/2/2026).

That wasn’t an easy decision to make, and it’s hard to expect a player to do that when they’re playing the best of the best, but there is hope that other players will pull themselves if they would face the same decision.

Brodin knows his team has a real shot to go far, and he wants to give himself the best chance to be a part of it. It’s also likely he didn’t want to hinder Team Sweden by playing injured, which gave his teammate Johansson a chance to go. Although these players want to put everything out there to win gold, they also know they have another team to come back to and hopefully chase a Stanley Cup.

Wild Players Can Benefit

As long as they stay healthy, the Olympics are a great opportunity for these players to play alongside and against the best in the world, including some of their own teammates. It can help them bring out new skills and find another level of their game that they can bring back to their own team. Plus, for some players, it’s a benefit to keep playing and not have a lot of time off, so they can keep in their routine.

The players that head to the Olympics are typically the type that thrive on playing a lot of minutes, and just love to play no matter if it’s practice or games. It’ll be interesting to see how this tournament goes and who will get to play for gold. Hopefully, every Wild player returns healthy and will be able to bring this experience along on a deep postseason run.