Kirill Kaprizov is finally ready to return from a month-long injury, but there's still a gaping hole in the Wild's lineup.
Joel Eriksson Ek suffered a lower-body injury in the 4-1 loss at Pittsburgh on Thursday that'll sideline him week-to-week, a timeline that puts his availability for Game 1 of the playoffs in question.
"With good news comes bad news," Kaprizov said in Russian through an interpreter.
That's been the state of the Wild for weeks now.
Kaprizov was hurt March 8 at Winnipeg, crumpling to the ice and into the splits underneath a check from Jets 6-7 defenseman Logan Stanley.
"The heat of the moment," Kaprizov said of the situation. "Maybe I didn't position myself correctly. Maybe he wanted to play the body a certain way, and I positioned myself incorrectly. It happens."
The winger missed the next 13 games because of a lower-body injury, but the Wild were productive while Kaprizov was rehabbing, "chilling" at home and playing on the computer.
"It wasn't very fun at all," he said. "I've never really had an injury this long in my career. A week, week-and-a-half max up to this point. So, it was definitely tough."