Despite Thursday’s tough outcome, Wild players were thrilled to have their captain and star forward back in the lineup.

The Minnesota Wild placed their top-scoring contributor on LTIR on Friday in Kirill Kaprizov because of an aggravated lower-body injury. Minnesota has been one of the NHL's biggest surprises in 2024-24, sitting in second place of the Central Division with 58 points.

The Minnesota Wild are getting a perfect storm of returns for Thursday evening against the Utah Hockey Club as both star forward Kirill Kaprizov and defenseman Jared Spurgeon have been activated from IR.

While Kaprizov could be back this week, Wild coach John Hynes did not "want to put a timeline" on his potential return, according to Smith, but added the fact Kaprizov is skating every day and continuing to do more and more each day is "a good sign." There are signs Minnesota could be gearing up to have some players return soon.

The Wild are bringing Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon back from injuries as the NHL season reaches the home stretch.

The Minnesota Wild placed Kirill Kaprizov on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) on Thursday, retroactive to Dec. 23 when he suffered his injury. The move, while removing the Russian forward from the Wild lineup, will also help the team navigate a cap crunch and address its injury-plagued lineup thanks to the cap relief LTIR provides.

Wild star Kirill Kaprizov is back in action. After missing the past 12 games with a lower-body injury that popped up after the holiday break, Kaprizov was set to make his highly anticipated return on Thursday night against Utah at Xcel Energy Center.

Read the recent NHL news and rumors about Kirill Kaprizov for fantasy hockey. Minnesota Wild left wing Kirill Kaprizov (lower body) will return to

And the clearest signal that Kaprizov and Spurgeon would be back is that the Wild reassigned defenseman David Jiricek two hours after practice. If you did the salary cap math, it really was the only option to get below the cap ceiling once Kaprizov is activated from LTIR.

The Minnesota Wild have been without two of the most important pieces in their lineup for multiple weeks, but that could soon be on the verge of changing. Forward Kirill Kaprizov, who has missed the last 12 games with a lower-body injury,

Jared Spurgeon put the Wild up 1-0 at 5:43 of the first period, taking a pass in the slot from Boldy and putting the puck past the stick side of Mrazek. Frederick Gaudreau made it 2-0 at 7:17, when his shot from the bottom of the right face-off circle got past Mrazek on the short side.