Christian Folin Recalled By Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild have recalled defenseman Christian Folin in advance of Friday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers.
#mnwild recalls @ChristianFolin from @iawild & reassigns Bickel. @TOTALLUXURYLIMO I-35 Report: http://t.co/2i9C5eNSD6 pic.twitter.com/cnnp21mJnz
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) February 20, 2015
The recalled seemed a foregone conclusion yesterday when the Wild announced that Jared Spurgeon would miss Friday’s game after exiting Wednesday’s win over the Flames in the first period. He was struck in the face with a shot. The team hasn’t given any details on the nature of his injury — whether it’s just soreness or if it’s as serious as a broken jaw or concussion — saying only that he has an upper body injury.
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That conclusion seemed even more obvious when Folin was kept out of the Iowa Wild lineup on Thursday night when they took on the Charlotte Checkers. (Iowa took on their seventh straight loss.)
I talked at length about Folin when he was reassigned last week, so I won’t rehash that entire argument here. It was great to see him sent down to Iowa in terms of getting him some ice time after he’d been scratched in six straight games with the NHL Wild.
However — and this is the gist of the referenced article — it wasn’t entirely clear to me that it was more advantageous to the team to be playing Nate Prosser over Folin during those scratches, even when you take Prosser’s penalty kill role into consideration.
So, I’m glad to see Folin back in the lineup. It’s unfortunate that it’s in replacement of Spurgeon, who the team simply isn’t able to replace. His injury could be a big problem for the team if it winds up lasting more than a couple of games.
I’d expect that Matt Dumba will move up into a top four role in Spurgeon’s absence. He’s played great on both sides of the puck recently and showed that in Koivu’s overtime winner against Calgary. He didn’t get an assist on the play, but he broke up a Flames rush that looked like it was a certain goal, then started the breakout that led to Koivu’s game-winner. His continued emergence could be a big boon for the Wild down the stretch.
In a corresponding move to Folin’s recall, the Wild have reassigned defenseman (sometimes forward… so “hockey player”?) Stu Bickel to the Iowa Wild.