While free agency might not have been the Christmas bonanza some Minnesota Wild fans were expecting, it has, on the whole, been a pretty good summer for the team. They avoided contentious contract negotiations with their top restricted free agent in Marco Rossi, as well as the top pending unrestricted free agent in Kirill Kaprizov. Add in a really solid draft, and it’s been a solid couple of months following their first round elimination at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. The only clouds in their skies have revolved around injuries.
They’re currently dealing with the possibility of starting the season without two key forwards in Mats Zuccarello and Nico Strum. It also appeared that they would be without one of their top blueliners when the puck drops next Thursday in St. Louis to start the season. In the summer Jonas Brodin had upper-body surgery and the recovery timeline initially stretched into the beginning of the season.
Now, it appears that the 32-year-old might be ahead of schedule. While he had been skating during training camp, it was mostly in a non-contact capacity. That restriction was lifted earlier in the week and according to his coach, John Hynes, he could be back in action sooner than anticipated,
“I think it’s trending more, say, towards the beginning of the month or mid-month.If he really continues to get better, I wouldn’t take Game 1 off the table, but I do think that he has short-tracked his time to come back, whether that’s for Game 1 or not.”
If he is able to return in the first couple of weeks of the season, it will take some pressure off of a defense that was skewing towards very talented, but inexperienced. Zeev Buium and David Jiricek might have both found themselves logging more minutes than the coaching staff would like.
Brodin, the tenth overall selection in 2011, logged nearly 23 minutes a night last season, his 13th as a member of the Wild. Unfortunately, much like with Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek, injuries limited the amount of games he was able to get into, as he suited up for just 50 contests.
Based on comments by Bill Guerin following the announcement of the surgery in June, it sounds like, even when he was in the line-up, Brodin was dealing with issues,
“It’s one of those things where you can leave it alone and it might be fine. And you can leave it alone, and it might not. … It’s not a traditional injury. It’s more of a wear-and-tear thing that, if you leave it, it could be OK, but it could be painful.”
His return would allow the Wild to assign Jiricek, who has had an up-and-down training camp to Iowa while also allowing Hynes to control the young Buium’s match-ups. Jake Middleton, Brodin, and Buium would make for a formidable left-side of the defense for Minnesota. It would also likely spell the end of Jack Johnson’s attempt to turn his try-out deal into a full-time contract. The veteran was brought in as insurance, and to this point, hasn’t done enough to justify a roster spot.