Jan. 23: The Wild officially activated Kaprizov from LTIR and Spurgeon from IR Thursday morning, per a team announcement. Jiříček was indeed reassigned to AHL Iowa yesterday, clearing the cap space for the former’s reinstatement.
Jan. 22: The Wild look to have superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov and captain Jared Spurgeon back in their lineup Thursday against Utah, Michael Russo of The Athletic reports. Both were full participants in Wednesday’s practice.
Kaprizov, 27, has missed 12 games with a nagging groin injury and has not played in nearly a month. On Dec. 23, the date of his last appearance, he was tied for second in the league in goals (23) and fourth in points (50) through 34 games.
Spurgeon, 35, returns after a slew-foot from Predators winger Zachary L’Heureux caused him a lower-body injury on New Year’s Eve. L’Heureux has since served and returned from a three-game suspension for the play, while Spurgeon missed nine contests, assuming he’s cleared to draw into the lineup tomorrow.
Minnesota entered Wednesday with a pair of roster spots, so taking Spurgeon off standard injured reserve won’t be a problem. However, Kaprizov is on long-term injured reserve, and the Wild lack the cap space to reinstate his $9MM cap hit.
They don’t need to open up a ton of flexibility, though, so they have a few ways of creating the required funds quickly. The simplest and likeliest is sending down defenseman David Jiříček, who projects to exit the lineup with Spurgeon returning anyway, Russo adds. They could also retroactively place defenseman Jonas Brodin on LTIR with his lower-body injury if he’s due to remain out until at least Feb. 1 or place defenseman Travis Dermott on waivers with the intent to send him to AHL Iowa.
Kaprizov looks to skate in his usual top-line role alongside Marco Rossi and Mats Zuccarello, according to Minnesota’s line rushes at today’s skate. Spurgeon will return to his new role as the Wild’s No. 2 right-shot defenseman behind Brock Faber with Declan Chisholm on his left flank as usual top-four option Brodin remains sidelined.
Despite missing an extended period, Kaprizov still has a nine-point cushion ahead of Matt Boldy for the team lead in points. He also leads the club with a +21 rating and 4.5 GF/60 at even strength.
While not the Norris nomination threat he once was, Spurgeon is still a comfortable top-four piece coming off left hip and back surgeries that capped his 2023-24 campaign at 16 appearances. In 37 contests this year, he’s posted four goals and nine assists for 13 points with a plus-three rating, averaging 20:43 per game. That’s still the 35-year-old’s lowest usage since his rookie season with Minnesota 14 years ago, though.
Although it hasn’t translated into a dominant rating, Spurgeon still tracks as the Wild’s best possession-controlling defenseman, at least at even strength. His 52.5 CF% leads Minnesota blue-liners and ranks second on the team behind Marcus Foligno’s 52.7.
I’ve been surprised by the Wild’s success this year…evidently I didn’t appreciate just how good Marco Rossi has finally become.
Don’t tell Wilf. He still thinks they are fading and will be trading Filip Gustavsson.