Wild Lose Koivu for a Month

One item that wasn't indicated at the time of writing this week's newsletter was that Mikko Koivu's injury, which placed him on the Injured Reserve on Monday morning, was quite as serious as the new reports have it.  The team announced on Monday afternoon that Koivu has undergone successful ankle surgery and the team does not expect to have him in their line-up for about a month.

The Wild are on the outside, looking in, on a wild card playoff spot, just behind the Phoenix Coyotes on tie-breakers and losing their captain will be a pretty big blow, especially considering they are already without goalie Josh Harding, forward Zach Parise and defenseman Jared Spurgeon.  All four players are on the IR and only Koivu has any sort of timetable for a return at the moment, albeit a poor one.

In 44 games this season, Koivu has 8 goals and 27 assists, which is good enough for 2nd on the team in pool points, 49th in overall pool scoring.

The month would put Koivu back healthy on time for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, which has the opening ceremonies slated for 31 days from today.  I would expect him to still be on Finland's roster, when it gets announced tomorrow.

Injuries and some real sub-par play has really hurt Dale B.'s team this season, which didn't look too bad on the outset of the season.  Luck hasn't gone his way this season and I think that would be the leading reason as to why his team goes into Week Fifteen in 20th place.

Dale's team is 26 points out of the top half of the standings, but missing out on Koivu for a month may be the final straw.  Two weeks until the second Waiver Draft players become active will mean that even if Koivu is dropped, he still misses a couple of weeks and he would only gain two weeks from a lesser player that he picks up, in theory.  Decisions, decisions...