Wild can’t afford to recall a forward to replace star players

Minnesota is still looking for its first victory of the season

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 6 years ago
Wild can’t afford to recall a forward to replace star players
KeyStone Press

It has been a rough start to the 2017-18 season for the Minnesota Wild, who is not only dealing with injuries, but also a tight salary cap situation. While Minnesota is still looking for its first win of the regular calendar, it only has 11 forwards in the lineup. 

The Wild will have to do without one of the typical 12 forwards Thursday night against the Chicago Blackhawks because they can’t afford to recall a forward to replace injured Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund.

Just $206,000 from the $75 million cap ceiling, GM Chuck Fletcher could have sent down defenseman Mike Reilly to Iowa to get an extra forward for the game, but no move has been made yet. 

Michael Russo of the Athletic revealed the Wild's line during practice today.

"The top three lines in practice the past three days were Marcus Foligno-Eric Staal-Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker-Mikko Koivu-Nino Niederreiter and Tyler Ennis-Joel Eriksson Ek-Chris Stewart."

"If the Wild suffer another short-term injury or illness, they would have to play short one player for one game in order to invoke a rule that would allow them to recall a $750,000 forward from Iowa without it affecting the cap," Russo adds. 

Let's hope nobody else gets injured...