Wild recalls Mike Reilly for first time, reassigns Christian Folin

For the first time in his pro career, defenseman Mike Reilly has been recalled from AHL Iowa.

It's likely a temporary move to give him a look and taste of the NHL and my guess is he won't play tomorrow night against the Toronto Maple Leafs after the Wild snapped a three-game losing streak last night in Chicago.

Rachel Blount is covering practice today and will update you later.

Reilly is tied for seventh in the AHL among defenseman scoring with nine points but is last in the league by a good chunk with a minus-23. He plays on a bad Iowa team, but scouts have said for awhile that his transition to pro hockey has been difficult on the defensive side of the puck.

Reilly, 22, drafted 98th overall in 2011 by the Columbus Blue Jackets, became a free agent last summer and signed with the Wild after teams courted him throughout the month of June.

The former Gophers defenseman was the 2015 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a Hobey Baker finalist. He was born in suburban Chicago but grew up in Minnesota.

He is a mobile, offensively-skilled, puck rusher who became the first Gophers defenseman to lead the team in scoring last season since Mike Crowley in 1996-97. He led all NCAA defensemen with 42 points, tied for third among all NCAA players with 36 assists (led defensemen), ranked first among all NCAA skaters with 19 power-play assists and earned First Team All-America and Big Ten honors for a second consecutive season. In three years with the Gophers, Reilly scored 18 goals and 89 points in 117 games.

Folin, whom coach Mike Yeo said last week needs to go down, work on his game and play big minutes, is 15 games played from requiring waivers. The Wild oddly sent him to Charlotte the other day for one game (recalled Gustav Olofsson to play 7 minutes while Ryan Suter played 32), then recalled Folin again only for him to be scratched in Chicago.