UPDATE: The Wild announced injury updates for Charlie Coyle, Nino Niederreiter and Marcus Foligno and the news is not good.
Coyle endured a right fibula fracture and has already had surgery. He’s expected to miss six to eight weeks and was even placed on long-term injured reserve.
Niederreiter suffered a high ankle sprain and was placed on (traditional) injured reserve; he’s expected to miss a minimum of three weeks.
Finally, Foligno was diagnosed with a facial fracture and he’ll undergo a procedure this weekend; he’ll be out at least a week.
With Coyle being placed on LTIR, the team now is given some salary cap relief in the range of $3.2 million, according to cap friendly.com. So Minnesota is free to call up a slew of players from Iowa, something they weren’t able to do earlier this season.
When a player is placed on LTIR, they must miss at least 10 games and 24 days, whereas with traditional IR, you can’t be reactivated for at least a week.
Read the original version of this story below.
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Already without Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund, the Wild lost three more forwards to injuries during their 5-2 win in Chicago Thursday night.
Marcus Foligno, who got into a solid hockey right with Chicago’s John Hayden, left the game with an undisclosed injury, and in the third period Nino Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle limped off the ice one minute apart from each other.
The injuries depleted the Wild to just eight forwards for the majority of the third period, which they somehow outscored the Blackhawks 4-2.
They might have to play with a short roster in Saturday’s home opener against the Blue Jackets, too.
“The most I can tell you is I don’t think Charlie and Nino will be playing Saturday. Until we get home, I’m not going to be able to know,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau commented after the win. “Marcus, I don’t know either whether he’s going to be available for Saturday. And you know Granlund and Zach are not available.”
“It’s definitely big names, but it’s early in the year. We’re going to battle through. We have great leadership in this room,” said Jason Zucker after the game, via Wild.com. [Dubnyk’s] been great, we have Al [Stalock] on the back end if we need it as well. I know it’s going to be a battle, but I think we’re ready for it.”
