Matt Dumba unlikely to travel with Wild, but Nick Bjugstad nears return

The Wild begins a four-game, cross-Canada tour on Sunday, and the team isn't likely to have everyone on the airplane that departs for stop No. 1 in Edmonton.

Matt Dumba sat out a third straight game Friday against the Panthers at Xcel Energy Center because of a lower-body injury, and coach Dean Evason said Dumba probably won't travel. The defenseman is on injured reserve.

"Does he join us? I don't know that end of it," Evason said. "It's just a thing we have to monitor every day and continue to get better, and hopefully we get him back sooner rather than later."

Even with Dumba hurt, the Wild is getting healthier.

Nick Bjugstad will be on the trip after being idle with a broken finger since early January. Although the winger has been cleared to play and Evason deemed him "ready," Bjugstad didn't suit up against Florida.

"He's looked great in practice, but [it] won't hurt him either to get a couple more practices anyway," Evason said of Bjugstad, who hasn't skated in a game since the Winter Classic on Jan. 1. "But to say he's champing at the bit is probably an understatement right now."

The Wild is at the 23-man roster limit, but the team did place center Victor Rask on waivers Friday. Rask has been scratched the past two games.

Ahead of facing the Panthers, the Wild tweaked its defensive pairings after a 6-3 loss at Winnipeg on Wednesday.

Captain Jared Spurgeon teamed up with Jordie Benn, Jonas Brodin and Alex Goligoski filled out another duo and Jon Merrill played alongside Dmitry Kulikov.

"Our lines have stayed the same. 'D' pairs want that, too," Evason said. "You get that familiarity with your partner and your talking and your reads. Ideally, we'd like to stop messing with it. But it happens."

Cam Talbot returned to the crease, ending a trend in which the Wild rotated between Talbot and Kaapo Kahkonen for seven consecutive games. This was the first time the team tabbed the same goalie for back-to-back starts since Talbot played Jan. 24 and 28.

Kirill Kaprizov logged his 100th regular-season game in the NHL on Friday, becoming the 88th skater and third Russian native to reach the milestone in Wild history.

Since the winger debuted last season after getting drafted in 2015 by the team, the Wild has one of the top offenses in the league, and that productivity hasn't gone unnoticed.

"Kaprizov is obviously a game changer for them as a franchise," said Florida interim coach and former Wild player and assistant Andrew Brunette, who also previously worked in the Wild's front office. "I was here when we drafted him and was hoping to get him. It took awhile for him to get here, but it's fun to see him and he's changed for sure the way they play.

"It's amazing you add one player and complements so many players, and they got some good young players that I was around to watch develop and had some good picks lately with [Matt] Boldy and these kids. They're a fun team right now."

Dumba's second annual Hockey Without Limits Camp is Monday from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. at the John Rose Oval in Roseville.

More than 170 youth players are scheduled to participate in an event Dumba created to bring more diversity and inclusion to hockey.