UPDATE FRIDAY 12 P.M.
Wild general manager Paul Fenton confirmed that Matt Dumba will need surgery to repair an undefined upper-body injury. He’s expected to miss a significant amount of time.
Fenton on Matt Dumba: "He's had a second opinion. He's expected to have surgery next week…he will be out for a significant time. We have a general timeline…but let's see how surgery goes…upper body." #mnwild
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) December 21, 2018
Original story
It’s only been two games without defenseman Matt Dumba and the Wild are already missing him badly, and they might be missing him for an extended period of time.
The Wild have only said that Dumba suffered an upper-body injury in last weekend’s loss to Calgary and that he wouldn’t play at all this week. But The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports that Dumba’s injury is “significant.”
Russo reports that the injury might require surgery, but either way he could miss anywhere from “weeks to months.”
The Wild was shutout 4-0 by San Jose on Tuesday and they followed it up with a 2-1 loss at Pittsburgh on Thursday night. Minnesota, arguably, played a better overall game than the Penguins, but a mistake by Devan Dubnyk led to one goal and another mistake by Greg Pateryn led to another.
Pateryn has seen his minutes increase with Dumba out, and while it’s impossible to predict whether Dumba would’ve been on the ice at the time, Pateryn was to blame for a costly turnover that led to the game-winning score.
Dumba already has 12 goals on the season, just two shy of tying his career high. If he’s out for a significant amount of time, the Wild could be in big trouble.
