The Minnesota Wild appear to have received positive news on star forward Kirill Kaprizov.
Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reports that Kaprizov avoided a serious injury and the team will see how he feels over the next few days.
The 27-year-old was not available for Saturday's game against the Calgary Flames due to a lower-body injury and was getting an MRI.
Kaprizov briefly left Thursday night’s game against Edmonton after a collision with Oilers forward Drake Caggiula. The play happened in the second period when Kaprizov was skating through the neutral zone and was caught awkwardly by Caggiula with a hit to his left area.
No penalty was called on the play, and Wild forward Matt Boldy confronted Caggiula, leading to a brief fight.
Kaprizov eventually returned to that game and finished with an assist and 22:51 of ice time.
According to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman on Hockey Night in Canada's Saturday Headlines segment, "there's a lot of frustration" in Minnesota about the nature of this Kaprizov injury and a hit that forced him to miss time in 2023.
"The team is really disappointed and just really upset about the situation," Friedman said. "Nobody's saying there's any deliberate attempt to injure here, but this is the second time in Kaprizov's career, he's been injured on kind of a weird play."
The previous odd injury the Russian suffered came on a play when Minnesota was playing the Winnipeg Jets, and defenceman Logan Stanley ended up with all his weight on Kaprizov's back, forcing the Wild star to the ice.
"On both plays (there was) no penalty, and the Wild are disappointed and upset that they're facing another absence here, on their star player," Friedman later added.
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