PITTSBURGH – Even though the Wild removed the injured reserve tag from center Nico Sturm on Friday following their morning skate at PPG Paints Arena, coach John Hynes said the season debut for the German faceoff specialist likely will not come until Sunday afternoon in Winnipeg at the earliest.
And with Ryan Hartman and Marco Rossi both still out with lower-body injuries, that meant a second game — and maybe more to come — with rookie Danila Yurov centering the team’s top line between Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov.
Things could hardly have started better for Yurov in his debut as the team’s top-line center. Less than two minutes into what would eventually become a 4-3 shootout win over Carolina late Wednesday night, Yurov fed a pass to Zuccarello, whose long-range shot deflected off defenseman Brock Faber and into the net, giving Yurov his third career assist.
“I think that probably was his first shift with those guys, so that probably relieves a little bit of the nervousness going into it and helps settle in,” Hynes said on Friday morning in Pittsburgh.
In the immediate aftermath of the Carolina game — in which the Wild were on the defensive for long stretches after getting 2-0 and 3-1 leads, then hanging on to get the two points — Hynes had a more frank and critical assessment of the entire top line. It was noted that, for an extended stretch late in the second period that night, the trio of Zuccarello, Yurov and Kaprizov did not see the ice. But after taking a more detailed look at things, the coach said Friday that what he saw from the three, and Yurov especially, was encouraging.
“He plays a good two-way game. I felt that he made a nice play on (Faber’s) goal,” Hynes said. “Very good on breakout support. I think he can fit well with those guys too because he can transport the puck.”
Signed by the Wild in May after he was the team’s first-round pick, 24th overall, in the 2022 NHL draft, Yurov had played parts of the previous five years in the Kontinental Hockey League in his native Russia. He entered Friday night’s game in Pittsburgh with two goals and three assists in 16 outings at the NHL level.
“He’s making plays, he’s very responsible, he’s always in the right spot. The offense is going to come,” Wild forward Matt Boldy said after the Carolina game. “It’s hard. It’s not that easy, especially as a young guy playing center and having a lot of responsibility, and then playing with Kirill and Zuccy is a whole beast on its own. I thought he was awesome.”
Keeping it in the room
The players who will talk about it admit that it helped turn things around when Wild captain Jared Spurgeon called a players-only meeting on Halloween. It allowed the members of the team a private forum to air their concerns about why Minnesota had put up a 3-6-3 record to that point.
But hockey also has a strict unwritten code that things said behind closed doors are intensely private. They often like to “keep it in the room” as is the game’s common language.
So, while players like Spurgeon and Faber will talk in general terms about what came out of that meeting, and how it helped the Wild to a 7-1-1 mark in their next nine, a more common response is the one offered by Boldy when he was asked about the meeting and what came from it.
“Yeah, it was good,” he said, and did not elaborate. Asked about the meeting a second time, Boldly offered the bare minimum.
“It was a good meeting,” Boldly said.
Keeping it in the room, clearly.
At long last, Bogo’s back
Shelved for more than a month with a lower-body injury, defenseman Zach Bogosian was eager to re-enter the lineup versus anyone, even if it meant going head-to-head versus future Hall of Fame forward Sidney Crosby on Friday night, as Bogosian played for the first time since getting hurt on Oct. 17 in Washington.
Skating for the past few weeks as he made his way back to playing health, Bogosian admitted on Friday that what Tom Petty once said is true: the waiting is the hardest part.
“Definitely it’s not very fun sitting around,” said Bogosian, who, entering the meeting with the Penguins, had played five games this season and was looking for his first point. “It’s a challenge in itself. The way I look at it, every time you hit a little bit of adversity, you just get through the situation, and this is no different. It feels nice to be back.”
With Bogosian healthy, the Wild scratched Daemon Hunt from the lineup on Friday and sent defenseman David Jiricek back to the Iowa Wild.
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