While watching the Wild struggle out of the gates this season, fans of the team could comfort themselves by looking ahead a little bit.
“We’ll be OK when Mats Zuccarello gets back,” they could tell themselves. Or, the faceoffs will be less of an issue when we get Nico Sturm.
John Hynes couldn’t play that game.
“You’re aware of when players are going to come back, but in this league, and in this job, you have to be so focused on the present,” the Wild coach said Tuesday.
The Wild went into Tuesday’s game against the San Jose Sharks at Grand Casino Arena having won four of their past five games to get themselves out of an early funk. The last two games included Zuccarello, who missed the first 15 games after having surgery to repair a lower body injury.
“I tried not to do the surgery, but at some point it’s just better to do it and come back and try and get healthy for the rest of the season rather than playing hurt the whole season,” Zuccarello said after Tuesday’s morning skate at TRIA Rink. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s part of the game.”
Playing his seventh season in Minnesota, Zuccarello, 38, was missed during a 5-7-3 start. Even when he isn’t scoring goals, he is making the other players on his line better, and his vision on the ice — particularly as it pertains to setting up Kirill Kaprizov — is preternatural.
In his previous four seasons in Minnesota, he averaged 46.5 assists. He had one in his first game back, a 5-2 victory in Long Island last Friday, and was back on the top line with Kaprizov and center Marco Rossi for Sunday’s 2-0 victory over Calgary in St. Paul.
Hynes would have liked Zuccarello to start the season, but he couldn’t spend time dreaming of his return. Same with center Sturm, out with an upper body injury, and defenseman Zach Bogosian, week to week with a lower body injury.
“It’s the guys that you have, not the guys you don’t have,” Hynes said. “That’s all you can control. You try to get the team prepared with the players you have available to you that night against that opponent.”
Sturm has been skating on his own for a few days, and Bogosian started on Tuesday. Bogosian remains week to week, Hynes said, but Sturm could return as soon as the end of this month.
Zuccarello said he had a productive, and healthy, summer but when he began skating in training camp, “I kind of felt something that wasn’t right.” The veteran right wing said he had surgery for a similar injury “four or five years ago.”
“I guess it didn’t work,” he quipped.
Zuccarello’s sense of humor clearly didn’t suffer during his rehab. Tuesday’s comments were his first since returning to the lineup, and he was asked if he missed the media.
“Of course,” he said, “every day. That’s why I worked hard to get back.”
Briefly
Wing Marcus Johansson played his 1,000th NHL game in Sunday’s victory over Calgary but was feted before Tuesday’s game against the Sharks, presented with a custom silver hockey stick created by Logan Sports Group of East Gwillimbury, Ontario. … Defenseman David Spacek was called up from AHL Iowa on Tuesday but didn’t make his NHL debut, a healthy scratch.
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