Wild Injury Update: Zach Parise Back, Marco Scandella Possible

After weeks of battling through injuries to guys like Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, Keith Ballard, Matt Cooke, Christian Folin (who is now in Iowa), and others, the Wild are starting to get closer to being a fully healthy team.

There was good news out of morning skate on Sunday prior to the team’s afternoon game against the Winnipeg Jets. The team expects Zach Parise to be back on the ice after missing five games with a concussion.

We and others have talked a lot about Parise’s concussion so we’ll leave the issue be, just noting that I hope that the Wild have given him enough rest and that they’re out of the woods as much as is possible. It’s not something worth rushing through to get back on the ice. In the blogs section of Wild Xtra, eminemilie has a nice post on the topic today.

In addition, there’s the possibility that the team will get defenseman Marco Scandella back today as well. Scandella and Brodin have been diagnosed with what is likely the mumps, something that has been seen now in up to four players from the Wild, players from the Blues, as well as Corey Perry and Francois Beauchemin from the Ducks.

Scandella’s availability will be determined based on how he feels during warm-ups. If he enters the line-up expect to see Justin Falk scratched or possibly Nate Prosser. There’s also the possibility that Matt Dumba gets scratched if the team intends to send him back to Iowa, but he’s played well enough over the last few games that I would bet they give him another shot today. As long as he’s up with the team, let him play.

The addition of Scandella to the line-up would be huge for the team. The d-corps in Minnesota is fantastic, but it’s been exposed over the last couple weeks as being a little thin. Injuries to the top four could have a huge impact on the team. The return of Scandella — if he returns — is really big for the team and could have as large of an impact as the return of Parise.

The team said Sunday that Brodin was hit harder by the illness than Scandella and will not be back. No update on Cooke, but he continues to progress slower than expected and will not be suiting up Sunday.

You can get a full preview of Sunday’s afternoon game against the Jets here. However, since that was published, we’ve also learned that the Wild will be starting Niklas Backstrom in net, despite a strong bounce-back game from Darcy Kuemper Saturday afternoon in Dallas.