Some Wild Injuries

The injury situation wasn't getting any positive boosts on Friday afternoon, when the team announced that their situation was significantly worse than one may have thought, but in it, there was a silver lining.  Two pool selected forwards, Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter, left last night's game against the Blackhawks with lower-body injuries and non-pool forward Marcus Foligno left with an upper-body injury after losing a fight... badly.

The Wild announced that Coyle had suffered a broken leg, which required surgery and that he is expected to miss the next eight weeks in his recovery.  The silver lining here that he will qualify to be placed on the Long Term Injured Reserve, because he will miss at least the next 10 games, actually closer to 25 games in total.  This will allow the Wild to get some cap relief and call up some players to help take the spots of some of the injured bodies.

Of course, this isn't great for Wilton, who opened Friday night in 10th place, 7 points out of 3rd spot and losing a forward from his group, one with some scoring potential, although he hasn't quite realized any of it yet this season.

Niederreiter, on the other hand, suffered a high ankle sprain and he'll be expected to miss the next three weeks worth of action, although there is some give and take on that timetable, since high ankle sprains are tough injuries to gauge.  He was placed on the regular Injured Reserve, just in case he is able to come back sooner, but if he does extend into four weeks or more, the Wild can claim that as cap relief, retroactive to his injury.

For Derek B., Niederreiter had yet to register a point in the pool and now he's not going to for the next month or so.  Derek starts the night only a point behind Wilton, but thanks to the tie-breakers, he's four spots back in 14th.  The tight part of the race gets tougher down a forward.

Non-pool forward Foligno suffered a facial fracture after he got tagged by a John Hayden right hook in a fight last night.  He had to spend some time in hospital getting it checked out, but he's only expected to miss a week's worth of action.

Talk about a rough night for the Wild.