Monday morning, before the Wild’s pregame skate with the Vegas Golden Knights, Kirill Kaprizov is expected to skate with skating and skills coach Andy Ness for the first time since sustaining a lower-body body injury on March 8, according to multiple team sources.
With the playoffs less than two weeks away, that’s great news for a team that literally had just one bright spot in last year’s playoffs: Kaprizov, who scored a single series’ franchise-record seven goals in six games during Minnesota’s disappointing exit to St. Louis after a record 113-point regular season.
The big question now remains whether there’s enough time for Kaprizov to be ready before the end of the regular season.
The initial goal for a Kaprizov return was three to four weeks. Wednesday marks four weeks from Kaprizov’s injury in Winnipeg when Logan Stanley fell on top of him. General manager Bill Guerin has indicated the hope is Kaprizov can play in the final week of the regular season.
“You never know, right?” coach Dean Evason said. “I don’t know, honestly. We’ll get him on the ice and have a better idea.”
With these types of injuries, it’s hard to tell how a player will respond to getting back on the ice and ramping up their skating. As much as Kaprizov can make progress in rehab activities in the gym or the pool, this will be the true test. Skating is such an important part of the superstar’s game, and the Wild want to make sure not to rush him before he’s ready.
The biggest obstacle is the schedule.
There are only three practices scheduled before the end of the regular season — Wednesday, Friday and April 12 before the April 13 finale in Nashville. Since he’s just starting to skate Monday, it’s hard to believe after a month away that he’ll progress enough to be cleared to practice Wednesday or Friday. And the April 12 scheduled practice is after back-to-back road/home games, which in most cases under Evason would automatically trigger a cancelled practice.
So could Kaprizov’s first game back conceivably end up being Game 1 of the playoffs?
“Any player, you want them to play some games obviously before the playoffs,” Evason said. “You don’t want to just put them in the playoffs. Having said that, can Kirill Kaprizov step in and play if his first game was the playoffs? I’m sure he’d be fine. But, the same for any other player, we’d like to get them a few games before.”
The other big concern with Kaprizov: How does he look and feel in the playoffs if he’s playing before he otherwise should with the type of injury he has?
Remember 2018?
Defenseman Jared Spurgeon suffered a partially torn hamstring against the Avalanche on March 13, didn’t get any regular season tune-up games, returned for Game 1 of the playoffs and looked like he was uncomfortably playing on one leg during a five-game exit to the Jets.
Now, the playoffs started on April 11 that season.
This season, the earliest the playoffs will begin is April 17. So Kaprizov was hurt five days earlier than Spurgeon and if he doesn’t play before the end of the regular season could return six days after. That’s 11 extra days of healing.
Four Wheelin’
Marc-Andre Fleury got into driving dune buggies while playing for Vegas.
He picked up riding four-wheelers during the league’s COVID-19 stoppage — “we couldn’t go anywhere” — and even owned one until he got traded to Chicago.
So when the Wild had an off-day Thursday in Las Vegas, Fleury hooked it up where a bunch of his teammates could join him joyriding in the desert. Several players joined, from Spurgeon, defense partner Jake Middleton and goalie Filip Gustavsson to forwards Marcus Foligno, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Freddy Gaudreau and more. There were about eight dune buggies, with players taking turns driving.
“It was a good day,” Fleury said. “The guys were smiling and laughing.”
Fleury, Spurgeon, Gaudreau and Foligno were in one truck. The group spent a bit of time driving up hills through the desert and Fleury set it up where there was lunch for the group (tacos and burritos) at the midway point.
“I’ve never done anything like that before,” Foligno said. “It was a blast.”
“You’re just in the middle of the desert, and that’s not something I’ve done often in my life,” added Gaudreau. “I’ve been on a couple hikes here and there, but to be able to be in the desert with the views that are endless. It was beautiful.”
Something brewing
Ryan Reaves remains a fan favorite in Vegas, where he played for four seasons.
The rugged winger also left a mark on the craft brewery scene.
Reaves created his own line of beers, 7Five Brewing, and in a partnership with Able Baker Brewing, still has some available in stores in the area.
“I started getting into craft beer when I got traded to Pittsburgh,” Reaves said. “When I got traded out here, I noticed (the craft beer scene) was very behind compared to other cities. My wife and my brother were pestering me to do something with the name ‘Grim Reaver.’ Basically, the summer I signed here, my wife said, ‘You should start a brewery.’ Two minutes later, I was like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
There’s a handful of brews that Reaves helped pick out the ingredients for. The Training Day Golden Ale (“if you like light beers”), the Dawn Breaker Lager (“very easy-drinking lager, good for the summer”), the Shiver Giver IPA (“easy-drinking IPA, my favorite”) and Grim Reaver Imperial Stout (“7.5 percent but doesn’t taste like that”).
Would Reaves bring his brews to Minnesota?
“If I re-sign there, I’ll definitely be starting something out there,” he said.
Reaves, for what it’s worth, said he’d love to return to the Wild. And Guerin has said he wants him back, so stay tuned for a possible “Reavo” beer coming to the Twin Cities soon.
Brotherly love
It’s been a big week for the Hartman family.
Center Ryan Hartman played in his 500th career NHL game last Wednesday in Denver. And, earlier in the week, Hartman’s younger brother, Tanner, won the Division III National Championship with Hobart.
“I think they’re still celebrating,” Hartman joked.
Hartman said he watched Tanner play in the semifinals and finals on his computer and was pumped for him. Their parents and grandparents got to be there in person for the tournament. With Ryan, 28, seven years older than Tanner, 21, their hockey careers have been a way to bond the way they couldn’t when they were younger.
“When I was 18 and he was 11, we didn’t have a whole lot in common,” he said. “Now, he’s 21 and that age gap feels a lot smaller now because we’re both at similar points in our lives. We’re a lot closer now.”
Friendly fire
When Mason Shaw delivered a huge hit on Carson Soucy late in Monday’s blowout win against the Kraken, it certainly seemed strange.
After all, Shaw and Soucy are really good friends, train together in the offseason and are from similar small towns outside of Edmonton.
“He bought me dinner the night before,’ Shaw said. “So maybe I shouldn’t have done him dirty like that.”
Shaw said he didn’t even know it was Soucy initially when he made the hit — he was just trying to do what he usually does and finish his checks. That Shaw had to end up fighting Yanni Gourde as a result — famously chewing on his mouth guard during the bout — was something he understood, too.
Shaw would stick up for his teammates as well.
Shaw said he and Soucy talked postgame and there was no issue — “we left it on the ice.”
“He’s a guy who I looked up to that really paved the way,” Shaw said before sustaining what is feared to be a fourth ACL injury Saturday against the Golden Knights. “He showed you could make it from our area. We’re obviously really good friends.” Shaw smiled: “But maybe this summer I’ll have something to hold over him a bit.”
‘Crazy Game of Hockey’
It’s been a long time in the making, but the Wild officially launched its Alumni Association last Monday during a news conference at Xcel Energy Center. As part of the announcement, the first big charity event will be held July 7 and 8 when the band, O.A.R., and Grammy-nominated guitarist and songwriter Cory Wong, who played youth hockey in the Twins Cities and lives in Shoreview, host a V.I.P. event, play in a celebrity hockey game and headline a concert at the Armory.
“Growing up in the music business, musicians want to be athletes — that’s all we talk about — and we assume athletes kind of want to be musicians, they kind of want to hang out and do the rock and roll thing,” said Marc Roberge, lead singer of O.A.R. “So this was an idea, having met (Wild director of team operations) Andrew (Heydt) almost 10 years ago and Cory and I are sitting in a studio in New York making a song together, we thought, ‘Wow, this is the actual, … this is it.’
“This is the time. We get to get out there and play hockey with folks who truly know what they’re doing. So it’s going to be hilarious to see musicians playing hockey with real pro players. It’s going to be a lot of fun to come to a concert and maybe see some pro players try to play music, which would be another fun aspect of this. But the Wild Foundation does amazing things and this is no different.”
Tickets for the all-access three events on July 7 and 8 can be found here.
(Top photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
