Kirill Kaprizov officially back but Wild lose Joel Eriksson Ek to injury
Do you want the good news or bad news first?
The good news: Kirill Kaprizov will return from injury and play for the Minnesota Wild Saturday against the St. Louis Blues. Kaprizov missed the past 14 games with a lower-body injury.
The bad news: Joel Eriksson Ek suffered a lower-body injury in Pittsburgh Thursday night and head coach Dean Evason says the Wild star is being evaluated on a week-to-week basis.
Joel Eriksson Ek is week to week with a lower body injury. Absolutely devastating to a team with little center depth. Oskar Sundqvist (lower body) is day to day.
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) April 7, 2023
Again, sounds like Kirill Kaprizov is on verge of return. Wild will need a forward from Iowa
Eriksson Ek was helped off the ice Thursday after he took a slap shot to his leg. If he misses more than a week his status for the first round of the playoffs is in jeopardy. One week from today (Friday) the regular season ends, so it appears likely that Minnesota will be without their standout two-way center for the last four games of the regular season.
- Wild vs. St. Louis on Saturday
- Wild at Chicago on Monday
- Wild vs. Winnipeg on Tuesday
- Wild at Nashville on Thursday
The playoffs begin three days after the end of the regular season, so the first possible date of a Wild postseason game is April 17. That gives Eriksson Ek just 10 days to recover from whatever injury he suffered if he's going to be ready to help Minnesota in Game 1 of their playoff series.
Minnesota enters play Friday with 98 points, good for third in the Central Division – two points behind Dallas and Colorado, though Colorado has one game in hand.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.