The Wild's Kirill Kaprizov is expected to play Thursday after a longer-than-expected break for injury. (Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Kirill Kaprizov is back in action. After missing the past 12 games with a lower-body injury that popped up after the holiday break, Kaprizov was set to make his highly anticipated return on Thursday night against Utah at Xcel Energy Center.
The team’s leading scorer didn’t talk about his lower-body injury after morning skate as the team prepared for tonight’s game against Utah.
The Minnesota Wild placed their top-scoring contributor on LTIR on Friday in Kirill Kaprizov because of an aggravated lower-body injury. Minnesota has been one of the NHL's biggest surprises in 2024-24, sitting in second place of the Central Division with 58 points.
The move was necessary to make the call-ups needed to have a full roster. It's retroactive, so Kaprizov can return whenever he's ready.
The Minnesota Wild are getting a perfect storm of returns for Thursday evening against the Utah Hockey Club as both star forward Kirill Kaprizov and defenseman Jared Spurgeon have been activated from IR.
The Minnesota Wild placed Kirill Kaprizov on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) on Thursday, retroactive to Dec. 23 when he suffered his injury. The move, while removing the Russian forward from the Wild lineup, will also help the team navigate a cap crunch and address its injury-plagued lineup thanks to the cap relief LTIR provides.
Kaprizov (lower body) will be back in the lineup versus Utah on Thursday, Michael Russo of The Athletic reports. Kaprizov will return to the lineup for the first time since Dec. 23 against Chicago, a stretch of 12 games on long-term injured reserve.
And the clearest signal that Kaprizov and Spurgeon would be back is that the Wild reassigned defenseman David Jiricek two hours after practice. If you did the salary cap math, it really was the only option to get below the cap ceiling once Kaprizov is activated from LTIR.
The Minnesota Wild are trying to stay atop the West, a mission that will be easier if Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon return Thursday.
Kaprizov had a couple scoring chances for the Wild (28-16-4), who were delighted to get their superstar back after he missed the last 12 games with a lower-body injury. Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves for Utah (21-19-7) in what was just their second shutout win of the season.