Josh Harding Suspended By the Wild

It’s been a tumultuous couple of days for Minnesota Wild goaltenders. More tumultuous than it really should be considering the team hasn’t even taken the ice yet. (But they will take the ice tomorrow.)

To briefly catch you up (as we’ve had to do a couple of times lately since the situation changes every ten minutes): Josh Harding was reported to have been on crutches with an injured ankle on Tuesday. He was reported to have been injured in an “altercation” with a teammate. Restricted free agent Darcy Kuemper was still in the process of negotiating a new contract. Wednesday evening, with camp starting in the morning, the team signed Ilya Bryzgalov to a professional tryout. Thursday it was revealed that Harding’s injury came from kicking a wall off-the-ice following the aforementioned “altercation” with a teammate. Then tonight, the Wild signed Kuemper to a two-year, one-way contract. That’s pretty well everything.

Except for this:

The Wild have suspended Harding until he’s ready to return. The suspension is due to the fact that his injury is not hockey-related.

The suspension means Harding will not be paid while he he is out and that his salary will not count against the salary cap during that time as well. According to Russo, per above, all paperwork has been filed and Harding’s suspension is effective immediately.

Just a quick update on this tonight. We’ll update this post if anything new comes out on this front.