The beginning of the Minnesota Wild’s 2023-24 season has been full of injuries. Captain Jared Spurgeon was hurt during the preseason. Matt Boldy was out for seven games. Freddy Gaudreau was injured in a hit by Ryan Reaves. Alex Goligoski was out with a lower-body injury for over a month. Recently, Zach Bogosian missed a handful of games. The Wild managed to pull through all of these absences, but now they will struggle with the worst injury absence so far: Jonas Brodin is listed as week to week after a hit from behind by Evander Kane during the game against the Edmonton Oilers.
The pairing of Brodin with Brock Faber has been an enormously effective shut-down duo. Compared to other pairings with at least 300 minutes of ice time together, Faber and Brodin are ranked 5th for goals for percentage (61.29%). They’re both listed individually in the top 10 of defensive defensemen in the league with Brodin at the top and Faber at six.
So far, the only idea of how the Wild will do is looking at their game against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday. It isn’t necessarily a fair comparison, seeing as the Kraken were on the second game of a back-to-back while the Wild had been off the day before. But it was the first full game without Brodin, and it shows that the Wild have some hope with their current defensive core.
Faber played great even without Brodin beside him. Together, they make a scary pair, but Faber still plays the same game without Brodin, which is good for the upcoming stretch without him. On Sunday, he was paired with Middleton. At the beginning of the season, Middleton struggled a bit without his usual partner.
On Sunday, Middleton and Faber had a 61% goals for percentage while they were on the ice together. Middleton also blocked seven shots on Sunday. Spurgeon was paired up with Goligoski. They also had a 61% goals for percentage when on the ice at five-on-five.
The biggest surprise during Sunday’s game was that Zach Bogosian returned from injury and went beast mode on the ice. Not only did he skate 18:23 that game, but he had three blocks and four hits as he defended the net.
All of that together ended up giving the Wild not only a win over the Kraken but also a shutout with the end score of 3-0. Have the Wild solved their problems?
One area of interest will be whether Hynes keeps the mixed-up defensive pairings. Putting Goligoski, probably their weakest defenseman, with Spurgeon helped shelter him. Middleton and Faber seemed good together. The third pair of Bogosian and Merrill can’t actually be judged one way or another because they didn’t spend much time together on the ice.
Ice time for the defensemen is another interesting thing to look at. During Sunday’s game, Merrill was only on the ice for 7:50. The next lowest was Goligoski with 12:21 TOI. Above that, Bogosian was just shy of 20 minutes, while Faber, Middleton, and Spurgeon were all just under 25 minutes up to just over 27 minutes on the ice. Hynes may have done this because he knew that the Wild had two days off after the Kraken game.
What about calling another player up from Iowa? Dakota Mermis traveled with the team during their road trip before being reassigned back to the Iowa Wild. If Brodin goes on Long Term Injured Reserve as is expected, there would be more money to work with. The team could recall Mermis again and possibly swap him in for Merrill. During the last five games that Mermis played with the Wild, he averaged 15 minutes of ice time. He’s played 14 games with the Wild already and five points on the season. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he gets called up again on Thursday for the Wild’s game against the Calgary Flames at home.
Daemon Hunt would be another good choice. He traveled with the team to Sweden and has played in five NHL games so far. While his ice time was extremely limited during his first two games, he showed that he could be trusted. His ice time grew to 14:17 during the last game he played with Minnesota. Recalling Hunt would be another good test for the young defenseman to show just how much he’s grown his game recently.
Overall, the absence of Brodin will be tough to weather. He’s an elite defenseman who seemingly never makes a mistake. But if the other defensemen are willing to shoulder more of a burden and tighten up any loosey-goosey parts of their game, the Wild can weather the loss of Brodin. Hopefully, his healing won’t take long, however, because both the team and fans will be happy to have him back as soon as they can.
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