Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin return as Wild start three-game road swing

The Wild are starting to look more like themselves.

Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin practiced with the team Monday at Tria Rink in St. Paul after injuries kept them out of the 2-1 loss to Dallas on Saturday night. Brodin was also sidelined the game before that with an upper-body issue, but coach John Hynes said both players would be good to go Tuesday night when the Wild begin a three-game road trip at St. Louis.

“I wasn’t really sure how long it was going to be,” said Eriksson Ek, who was hurt Thursday against Montreal. “It didn’t take too long. Nice to feel good again.”

Mats Zuccarello is still out for the foreseeable future after getting struck by a shot and having surgery on a lower-body injury, but getting Eriksson Ek back gives the Wild a better chance to overcome Zuccarello’s absence because they can have Eriksson Ek center wingers Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy — a reunion they previewed at practice.

“They’re two world-class players,” Eriksson Ek said. “For me, it’s fun to play with them.”

After they teamed up following a lackluster performance by the Wild coming out of the All-Star break last season, the three were a force.

Among lines that logged at least as much ice time as they did, Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek and Boldy led the NHL in goals per 60 minutes at 4.64, according to MoneyPuck. The Wild also outscored the opposition 29-18 when they were on the ice, that 61.7% share of offense also ranking among the best in the league.

“They played fast,” Hynes recalled. “They played really connected. I think they played direct. All three of them are skilled players. … But what made them really effective was just how tenacious they were in the offensive zone.”

This line didn’t start the season intact because the Wild wanted to achieve better balance with their forward lines, and they had a productive top six early when Kaprizov clicked with Zuccarello and Marcus Johansson complemented Eriksson Ek and Boldy.

But considering how timid the Wild were on the attack through the first two periods against the Stars, giving last season’s No. 1 trio an opportunity to kickstart the offense makes sense.

“All of us can win battles, keep pucks in, get pucks back,” Boldy said, “It’s so hard to score in this league. That’s kind of the way to do it: keep pucks [and] stay big and strong.”

As for who will fill out their lineup, the Wild added forwards Ben Jones and Devin Shore from the minors after returning rookies Liam Ohgren and Michael Milne to the American Hockey League.

Jones’s 12 points are tops for Iowa, while Shore is third with 10. Shore has logged 443 games in the NHL and Jones two.

“Those two guys have been real strong, two-way players,” Hynes said. “They’ve been able to produce. Their overall game, their hockey sense has I think shown down there, and that’s why they’re up now.”

Jones, a native of Waterloo, Ontario, will play against the Blues. He did not score a goal in the NHL in his two games with Vegas three years ago.

Hynes also made a tweak to the power play, promoting Declan Chisholm to the first unit in place of the right-handed Brock Faber — a change Hynes hopes could give Boldy more options and lead to easier puck movement with Chisholm a lefty.

“The power play has been a little bit out of sync,” Hynes said, referring to the 3-for-27 rut over the past nine games.

Where the Wild haven’t been shaky is in net.

Filip Gustavsson is 8-3-2 with a 2.08 goals-against average that leads the NHL and a .927 save percentage that’s tied for first. He’s scheduled to face the Blues in his first game back at Enterprise Center since he scored the first goalie goal in Wild history to cap a 4-1 victory Oct. 15.

Marc-Andre Fleury hasn’t played since Nov. 7 at San Jose, in what was his third consecutive win, but Hynes said Fleury will get a game on this trip. In the meantime, Gustavsson is penciled in to make a season-high fifth straight start.

“The consistency that he’s played with has been factors in the game,” Hynes said. “I think lots of times you may have games everything’s going for you, but then there’s other games where you sometimes need the goaltender to be able to make some big saves and get your feet under you and get going, and he’s certainly done that.

“He’s done that consistently.”

7 p.m. Tuesday, Enterprise Center

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Blues update: St. Louis has struggled lately, winning just once in its past six games. The Blues are coming off a 4-1 loss at Carolina on Sunday that extended their power-play funk. They have scored just twice with the man advantage in 20 tries over the past nine games. RW Jordan Kyrou leads the team in points (16) and assists (11) and is tied for first in goals (five). Kyrou has 21 points in 20 career games vs. the Wild.

Injuries: Wild RW Mats Zuccarello (lower body) is out. Blues D Philip Broberg (lower body), D Torey Krug (ankle), D Nick Leddy (lower body), D Pierre-Olivier Joseph (lower body) and C Robert Thomas (ankle) are out.