Minnesota Wild News & Notes: Kirill Kaprizov records hat trick

That noise you hear is the sound of the Kirill Kaprizov hype train picking up steam. In his team’s latest game the talented winger recorded a hat-trick and added an assist to finish the day with four assists.

Kaprizov is in the midst of a six-game point streak. The talented Russian currently leads the KHL in points with 11, with four goals and seven assists. A year after leading the KHL in goals Kaprizov is off to a fast start in what could be his final season before bringing his talents to the State of Hockey.

“Kaprizov has turned into an elite goal-scorer in the KHL,” Josh Bell of The Hockey Writers said. “But he’s also a tremendous passer and his hockey IQ is through the roof.”

The Captain Returns

Mikko Koivu is coming off a torn ACL that he suffered in February last season. At the age of 36, one has to wonder how the team’s captain will respond from such a serious injury. He took the first step to answering those questions by participating in the team’s scrimmage on Monday.

“I was nervous on how it was going to go,” Koivu said. “It felt better than I thought it would be.”

Wild coach, Bruce Boudreau said you always know what you are going to get when Koivu is on the ice.

“When Mikko goes out there you know he’s going to be really strong defensively…he’s always doing the right things,” Boudreau said. “It was very encouraging. I asked him and he felt good.”

Wild trim the roster

The Wild started the process of trimming the roster today by assigning six players to their junior teams and by releasing eight more.

Hunter Jones, Adam Beckman, Damien Giroux, Matvey Guskov, Shawn Boudrias and Fedor Gordeev were the six players assigned to their junior teams. Gabe Gagne, Brett Pollock, Lester Lancaster, Jordan Topping, Shawn O’Donnel, Josh Atkinson, Matt Register and Keaton Thompson were the eight players released.