Having Kaprizov, Eriksson-Ek back makes the Wild scary again

With a relatively healthy lineup, the Minnesota Wild showcased an offensive frenzy Wednesday night, beating the San Jose Sharks 8-7 in overtime and maintaining the No. 1 Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.

In his first game since Feb. 22, Joel Eriksson-Ek put on a shot, scoring four goals. The same could be said for Kirill Kaprizov, who played for the first time since Jan. 26 and just his fourth game since Dec. 23, scoring two goals and an assist in the winning effort.

With both players in the lineup just a week before the Stanley Cup Playoffs begins, the question now becomes: could the Wild give teams a fit in the first round? Minnesota will likely face one of the Winnipeg Jets or Vegas Golden Knights in Round 1, and while they will most definitely be the underdogs, in a seven-game series, anything can happen.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the return of the two forwards and what that means for their postseason outlook.

Carter Hutton: Kaprizov and Erikson Ek combined for six goals against the Sharks, and I think this is a shot in the arm that this Minnesota Wild team needs. Looking at the standings, they’re still a team that is to be reckoned with, especially with Filip Gustavsson come playoff time.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Everything was so quiet around those two on the injury front for a while. We weren’t getting a lot of updates, and we were getting close to the end of the regular season, and it’s not like these were guys who missed a week or two, they had been out fora. pretty long time.

For me, I was looking at Minnesota and thinking: “Even if you get these guys back for the start of the playoffs, how good are they going to be? Are they coming back at 90 percent, just because it’s the playoffs? Now that you’ve seen them in a regular-season game, and they’re going to get three more so they can get up to speed before the playoffs, it totally changes the outlook on this Wild team.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…