Struggling Minnesota offense dealt major injury blow to star player

The Minnesota Wild’s offense has had its fits and starts to begin the 2025-26 season. Through the early-October struggles they’ve at least had their top line of Matt Boldy, Kirill Kaprizov, and Marco Rossi pressuring the opposing team. Now, at least for the short term, they won’t even have that as Rossi will be missing their game against the New York Rangers with a lower-body injury. 

The 24-year-old forward apparently sustained the injury while blocking a shot during Saturday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers, a 2-1 overtime loss. It’s unusual for Rossi to miss action as the young center logged 82 games played in each of the last two seasons. As of now, the timeline for his injury is unknown, but the Wild are hoping it is just day-to-day.

What are they missing

With Rossi out, the Wild are missing their top center and the pivot-man for their two stop scorers on the team in Kaprizov (9 points) and Boldy (9 points). While the trio has only been on the ice for two 5v5 goals, they are one of the only lines that is consistently driving possession for Minnesota as they have 62.00% of the scoring chances when they’re on the ice. And they’ve been on the ice together a lot, a team-leading 44:28 of 5v5 time. 

Not only are they missing his 5v5 play, but he’s also centered the second power play unit where he’s assisted on two of the Wild’s league-leading ten goals with the extra skater. Rossi is also one of the team’s top penalty-kill forwards, so there is a lot of ice time that has to be filled during his absence.

Who is going to fill the role

Based on the morning skate it appears that Joel Eriksson Ek will step up to play on the top line. That’s not an unusual spot for him as he logged 16 games with Kaprizov and Boldy last season, and the trio was effective, posting a 6-2 goals scored advantage in 130:56 of ice time together during the year. 

The top line won’t be the issue, the trickle-down effect is where issues could arise as it appears Ryan Hartman will slot in with Marcus Johansson and Vlad Tarasenko on the second line, and Danila Yurov bumps up to the third line. Ben Jones is likely to see his first action of the season centering Yakov Trenin and Tyler Pitlick on a completely rebuilt fourth line. 

Minnesota was already having issues getting scoring outside of their top six, and this latest injury isn’t going to help matters. They have just six total 5v5 goals on the season, and four of them came on opening night. To make matters even more dire, Rossi has been on the ice for three of the six goals. 

Someone is going to need to step up for them if Rossi is out any length of time. Unfortunately, that’s what they needed when Mats Zuccarello was placed on injured reserve and they’ve yet to truly find a replacement on the second line. Now they’re having to dig even deeper into a roster that has become somewhat thin with their young prospects struggling.

Zach Bogosian to miss second straight game

One of those prospects, David Jiricek will be in the line-up on the third pairing next to Jake Middleton as the veteran Zach Bogosian is set to miss his second game in a row with a lower-body injury (also thought to be the result of blocking a shot). 

Jiricek was loaned to Iowa last week after he failed to produce much of an impact in the first two games of the season. With Jonas Brodin’s return to action, Jiricek was the one sent to the AHL. He was recalled prior to the Philadelphia game and played alright in the overtime loss. He has a chance to keep his spot, if not in the line-up, then at least on the roster if he can step his game up a little.

Tonight’s Game Details:

Game #7 Minnesota Wild (2-3-1) at New York Rangers (3-3-1)

Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City

TIme: 6:00 PM CST

TV/Stream: NHLN, FDSNNO, MSG, FDSNWI

Opposing Point of View: Blue Line Station