Wednesday night’s home game against the Montreal Canadiens will be the first game Ryan Suter has missed since joining the Minnesota Wild in 2012. Illness is going to keep him off the ice, an illness that the Wild are really, really hoping isn’t the mumps.
Suter is said to not have the swollen glands that have been an easy indicator of mumps or the euphemistic “mumps-like symptoms” that continue to spread around the NHL. But, despite not having swollen glands, he is said to have some symptoms that made the organization have him undergo bloodwork today.
Yeo says Suter doesn't have swollen glands but has some mumps symptoms that make #mnwild concerned
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) December 3, 2014
The mumps have hit the Wild’s blue line hard (are these guys rooming separate from the forwards?) with Keith Ballard (missed eight games), Christian Folin (missed five games), Jonas Brodin (missed seven games), and Marco Scandella (missed two games) all coming down with it. Players from the St. Louis Blues, Anaheim Ducks, and now the New York Rangers have all been diagnosed with mumps at various points during the season as well.
Even if Suter felt able to play — and I don’t know that he does — it’d be smart of the organization to hold him out with mumps being a possibility. Everyone was hoping that the optional vaccines players were offered and a little stretch here with no one on the team exhibiting symptoms might have meant that the team was rid of the virus, but it’s certainly better to be safe with the health of the team right now.
I won’t roll out the stats, but obviously any game without Suter is a loss for the Wild. They’re better with him out there. However, if they can string a couple of wins together without him and get Folin — who was recalled from Iowa yesterday — some good ice time and he performs well, there might be a silver lining to the Wild losing yet another blueliner to the mumps.
Folin is expected to lineup in Suter’s spot with Brodin as a partner.