The Minnesota Wild are again dealing with multiple injuries. The Wild announced that they’ve placed forwards Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy on the injured reserve.
Additionally, Minnesota has made multiple roster moves. In the same announcement, the team shared that they’ve recalled Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Hunter Haight, and David Jiříček to the NHL, while returning Carson Lambos to the AHL’s Iowa Wild.
Assuming the Wild makes Eriksson Ek’s placement retroactive to January 8th, he’s eligible to be activated as soon as he’s healthy. Still, since the team opted to place him on the injured reserve today, there’s little chance he’ll be in the lineup tomorrow against the Buffalo Sabres. He’s been dealing with a lower-body injury for the past week.
Already perusing the trade market for a second-line center, Eriksson Ek’s exit from the lineup has been a major detriment to the team. In the three games he has missed, Minnesota has lost all of them while collecting only one point. Typically in a top-six role, Eriksson Ek has scored 11 goals and 32 points in 45 games for the Wild this season while having a 49.7% success rate in the faceoff dot.
Meanwhile, arguably the larger concern is that Boldy will have to miss the next four games. Since Boldy seemingly suffered an undisclosed injury in Minnesota’s recent game against the Winnipeg Jets, he won’t be eligible to return until next Friday.
After skating in 203 consecutive games, the Wild will now move forward with one of their best offensive forces. Throughout 48 games this season, Boldy led the team in goal-scoring with 27 tallies and sat one point behind Kirill Kaprizov for the overall team lead.
Neither Aube-Kubel nor Haight will help Minnesota make up for the loss of offense. The two have combined for one assist across six games for the Wild this season. Still, in their defense, they’ve remained relatively productive with AHL Iowa this season, with the latter ranked third on the team in scoring with seven goals and 17 points in 31 games.