Anyone who has followed Joel Eriksson Ek closely throughout his NHL career understands his incredible pain tolerance. It takes a lot for the 26-year-old Swede to leave a game.
Which is why the scene on Thursday night was so concerning.
With the Wild trying to mount comeback on the road against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Eriksson Ek had to be helped down the tunnel shortly after crumbling to the ice. After blocking a shot from Penguins stars Evgeni Malkin a few seconds earlier, he couldn’t put any weight on his left leg.
Less than 24 hours later, the Wild announced that Eriksson Ek is week-to-week, leaving his status for Game 1 of the NHL playoffs very much in doubt. Though coach Dean Evason left room for optimism — “I don’t know,” he said in reference to the timeline. “If you know Eriksson Ek, you never know, right?” — it sounds as if the Wild are preparing for life without their best center.
“We talked about it last night,” Evason said. “He’s a huge part of our hockey club. There’s nothing we can do about it now. It’s done. We’ll hopefully get him back sooner than later.”
This isn’t the first time this season the Wild have had to deal with a major injury. They responded positively when Jonas Brodin went down and did the same thing with Kirill Kaprizov out of the lineup. That experience should help them respond to this latest bit of adversity.
“Our group has a lot of character,” Evason said. “They understand the situation, so yeah, we’re excited to see them respond here.”
Still, there’s no denying that Eriksson Ek missing a prolonged stretch of time is going to hurt. He literally does everything for the Wild, playing on the No. 1 power play, No. 1 penalty kill, and more often than not, against the opposing team’s best player.
How do the Wild replace that type of impact?
“We expect everybody just to step up in situations like this,” Evason said. “No different than any other injury.”
It will be interesting to see if the Wild look to the minors for some reinforcements. Though a call-up won’t happen before the game on Saturday night against the St. Louis Blues, it could happen at some point in the next couple of days.
Maybe it’s finally time to see what Marco Rossi is made of?
“He’s a player that we’ve talked about calling up,” Evason said of Rossi. “Are we leaning towards that if we call a guy up? Sure. Just a bunch of different reasons, for sure. He’s played very well, so yeah, he is definitely part of the equation.”
