No one will ever know how the Minnesota Wild would’ve fared if Joel Eriksson Ek didn’t miss all but 19 seconds of the playoff series against the Dallas Stars, but the standout two-way center’s toughness will never be questioned after he revealed that he tried to play through a broken leg.
Eriksson Ek was struck in his lower leg by a puck in Minnesota’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on April 6. The powerful shot fractured his fibula and knocked him out for two weeks before he mustered up enough strength to give it a go in Game 3 against the Stars. But 19 seconds into his first shift of the game he realized the injury was too severe to play through.
“I was skating for I don’t know how many days before,” Eriksson Ek said during the Wild’s exit interviews on Monday. “I felt good, and then just first shift, yeah, it didn’t hold up.”
The loss of Eriksson Ek was evident in all aspects of the game, but none more so than on Minnesota’s penalty kill. Dallas scored nine power-play goals in the series, which ended with a 4-1 thumping in St. Paul in Game 6.
“It is just so hard to sit and just watch. I think that’s harder than actually being out there. Being with the guys, that’s what you want to do. You want to be out there to try to do your best to help the team,” Eriksson Ek said. “It sucks. You play a whole season and then right before playoffs you get hurt.”
Eriksson Ek is expected to be 100% healthy for the 2023-24 season.
