Kirill Kaprizovs health suddenly a concern as sinking Wild head to Sweden

May 12, 2024

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Kirill Kaprizov hasn’t looked himself all season.

He can’t separate from opponents, there’s no explosion with his skating and he’s turning pucks over at an aggravating rate.

Well, maybe we now have some semblance of an answer as to why.

Kaprizov has been bothered by something and on Monday missed the Wild’s practice in Minnesota before the team’s 10 p.m. CT charter to Stockholm for what coach Dean Evason deemed a “maintenance day.”

“A little banged up,” Evason said a day after the Wild lost their third in a row and ninth in the past 12.

Evason was then vague when asked if this has been something bothering Kaprizov for a while and whether it could be the reason he has looked so off.

“I don’t know,” he said. “All our performances are affected a little bit right now.”

GO DEEPER

Russo: Wild need more from an ordinary Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy and the world's worst PK

One reason Evason is being vague might be that he honestly doesn’t know if this is new or has been bothering Kaprizov. If it is something that’s been lingering, Kaprizov has kept it to himself and hasn’t made the team aware of any ongoing treatment for it.

So, perhaps this is something that just popped up recently or during a terrible performance by Kaprizov and the team as a whole Sunday in a humbling 8-3 loss to Dallas.

Evason indicated the Wild aren’t certain Kaprizov will be healthy enough to play against the Senators and Maple Leafs in Sweden next weekend. He is still expected to travel, but the Wild also recalled defenseman Daemon Hunt from Iowa before their flight.

No Kirill Kaprizov in today’s #mnwild practice. Nic Petan a placeholder on his line. The big change in practice is a reunion of last March’s dominant Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Boldy line. Rossi with Zuccarello, Hartman between Maroon and Foligno

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) November 13, 2023

The Wild already had forward Nic Petan and defenseman Jon Merrill as extras and recalled Jesper Wallstedt, a native of Sweden, to be their emergency goalie at no cap charge for the trip. If Wallstedt were needed to play, though, the Wild would still have to fit him under the cap. In order to afford that plus fit a 23-man roster, they placed Freddy Gaudreau, who has missed nine games with an upper-body injury, retroactively on long-term injured reserve.

Gaudreau is skating on his own and is technically eligible to come off LTIR on Sunday against the Maple Leafs. Both he and injured Alex Goligoski are supposed to accompany the team to Sweden.

Back to work

Evason hinted Sunday that Monday’s practice “won’t be fun,” and he wasn’t kidding.

Evason and the staff met with the group before the hour-long session and told them “Yesterday is gone.”

“Learn from it, but we’ll forget it,” he said.

Then they went through a fast-paced practice focused on structure and defending. There weren’t many smiles out there from players, who appeared to be in game mode.

“We wanted execution. We wanted to play some defense,” Evason said. “Guys are squeezing it a little tight offensively. Our analytics said we had 12 shots on net five-on-five and 12 missed the net. So we wanted to do a little bit of that. But we wanted to play some defense.

“When things aren’t going your way, you want to get back to basics and work hard. We’re seventh in the league in scoring. We’re scoring enough goals to win hockey games. We just have to keep it out of our net.”

What’s driving Evason batty is the number of missed nets. In fact, without telling the players during the first drill Monday, he planned to skate the heck out of them with ups and backs the length of the ice for every missed net.

Players were so precise, though, that they only had to do two.

On the board

Forward Brandon Duhaime did not receive any supplemental discipline for his boarding of Stars defenseman Thomas Harley late in the second period. Duhaime got a five-minute major and game misconduct, and the Stars scored twice on the ensuing five-minute power play. Remember, Duhaime also took a penalty in the first minute of the game that also led to a goal.

With the penalty kill struggling this much — dead last in the league — discipline can be a big issue for a team like the Wild. They took seven penalties Sunday, including two tripping, one hooking, a holding and an interference.

Evason didn’t seem to be ticked at Duhaime for his boarding call.

“You don’t want to see a guy in (in the boards) like that, but there’s a responsibility on both parties,” Evason said. “Do we want to be down a five-minute major? No. But he’s making a hockey play. He’s trying to hit the guy. We don’t think it was undisciplined at the time. He’s trying to make a hit, and obviously, it went bad. Never want to see that. Are the other penalties avoidable? Yeah, the hooking, the holding, the tripping, that kind of stuff, those are avoidable penalties that we can’t take.”

(Top photo of Kirill Kaprizov: Bruce Kluckhohn / NHLI via Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lGltaW9gbnxzfJFsZmppX2aAcMPIpZtmo5mntq24jKSYqaqZr7y3eceemKWsmGLAuLHDnqVo