Wilderness Walk: Major injury update

That’s Wild

• During the Minnesota Wild’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, there were hard hits, desperate blocks, and an overall effort that saw them force a loser point after going down by two goals. Trying that hard forces some injuries to happen, as defenseman Jon Merrill, forward Matt Boldy, and Jacob Middleton appeared to get different levels of injured during the game.

Head coach Dean Evason provided us with an update after the game.

First, the good news is Middleton is all right to continue playing as the Wild head on a four-game road trip. Boldy’s upper-body injury will be further evaluated. But when it comes to Merrill, he will not make the road trip, meaning he will miss at least the next four games. Luckily, Minnesota already have Alex Goligoski waiting in the wings and Jordie Benn still on the roster to serve as an extra blueliner on the road trip. Still a lot of hurt.

• Speaking of the game, if you missed any of it, we got you covered here with our recap. [Hockey Wilderness]
• Kirill Kaprizov is a surefire superstar and we all know it. [10K Rinks]

Off the trail...

• Let’s take a look around the Metro, see how things are shaping up for the playoff teams in the home stretch. [Canes Country]
• This will be Sidney Crosby’s seventeenth point-per-game season. That’s nuts. [Pensburgh]
• The NHL GMs, like the rest of us, are glad that life is getting back to normal such that they can have their little secret meeting down south at the beach rather than over stupid boring Zoom. [TSN]
• Remember how, during the pandemic season, there were a lot of AHL-style series against the same team over the course of a few nights, and it was really fun to see how heated things got between the two teams? Home-and-homes are like little mini versions of that. They’re fun. [The Cannon]