The Minnesota Wild announced on Tuesday that they are recalling forward Jordan Schroeder.
#mnwild recalls @J_Schroeder90 from @iawild & places Fontaine on IR. @TOTALLUXURYLIMO Report: http://t.co/0fmNtyKnsq pic.twitter.com/QN4TlVSRme
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) February 3, 2015
As the tweet above mentions, this move is connected to the Wild placing Justin Fontaine on IR. Fontaine missed Sunday’s matinee against the Vancouver Canucks after leaving the prior game against the Calgary Flames with an injury.
His placement on IR should date back to January 29, meaning he could be eligible to return as soon as Saturday’s home game against the Colorado Avalanche, though there’s no timetable on his return at this point.
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Whether or not Schroeder draws into the lineup would likely be dependent on whether Mike Yeo decides to play Erik Haula, who has been in the doghouse lately. He’s played in just one of three games since the league returned from the All-Star break and that was largely because of the absence of Fontaine on Sunday.
However, it appears that both Haula and Schroeder will be on the ice Tuesday as the team announced that Matt Cooke will also be out with a lower body injury on Tuesday. Yeo said Cooke could be out “potentially out for a longer period of time.” Cooke will be evaluated by doctors on Wednesday, but the Star Tribune’s Michael Russo is reporting that he’s heard that Cooke could be done for the rest of the season.
Yeo said Cooke is out tonight, potentially for a long time. I'm hearing he's done for the season w lower body injury #mnwild
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) February 3, 2015
Both injuries are bad news for the team. They will be losing two of their more relied upon depth forwards who eat up a lot of penalty kill time. Cooke hasn’t been the high impact player he was last season, but his presence will be missed as it’s unlikely that Schroeder will be leaned on to play penalty kill minutes against Chicago.
Schroeder has played just three games for the Wild this season, but has been an important presence in Iowa. He’s been one of the few players on the team capable of creating any offense. He has 10 goals and 18 assists through 35 games. That’s good for third on the team. Both players ahead of him — Tyler Graovac and Michael Keranen — have played more games.
In his brief time in the NHL this season he’s performed well in spurts, particularly against Chicago at the beginning of January in a game where he led the team with seven shots. In those three games Schroeder has no points, but a 69.5% CF%, a 71.4% SCF (scoring chances for), and a 70.3 SF% (shots for) despite -1.5% ZSRel%. The sample size is really too small for it to mean a whole lot, but he’s performed well in very limited time.