Justin Falk Will Return To Iowa

The Wild are having a tough time keeping defensemen healthy right now. Jonas Brodin has missed time since getting hit from behind by the Rangers’ Chris Kreider. Christian Folin and Keith Ballard have been out ill and it doesn’t sound like Ballard’s feeing any better yet. Jared Spurgeon left Thursday’s game against the Sharks after getting hit by Joe Thornton against the boards and is expected to miss a few games.

But, according to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune, the Wild are returning Justin Falk to the Iowa Wild. Falk was called up on Monday as the Wild started a two-game, two-day road trip. Returning Falk to the AHL means that some of the defensemen must be getting healthy and with Jonas Brodin having skated the last couple of days, that may mean he returns to the lineup on Saturday against the Stars.

Falk has actually played pretty well in his three-game run with the Wild so far, but getting Jonas Brodin and Christian Folin (who will return) back is a big step up.

Falk proved in his short run with the team that he can add to the team in more ways than just punching faces and being very large, which is nice to see this early in the season when the injuries are piling up. What’s worked really well for the Wild so far is that the blue line is activating into the play like Minnesota has never done and Falk isn’t particularly gifted offensively, so if he’s up it’s not the best scenario for the style the Wild are playing right now. But it’s good to see that he added to the team in more ways than the intangible “grit” we hear so much about.

Look to the blog for an injury update in a little while. We’re going to try and get updates here about each of the players who is currently out with injury. There’s a good pile of them. Not a Columbus Blue Jackets-sized pile, but a decent one. (Columbus is without Boone Jenner, Nick Foligno, Matt Calvert, Sergei Bobrovsky, Artem Anisimov, Nathan Horton, Brandon Dubinsky, Mark Letestu, and James Wisniewski.)