Kirill Kaprizov is the Wild's best player, the franchise's only true superstar and an absolute key to the rest of this season.

He's also played just three games since Christmas and zero since late January. To make matters worse, the Wild don't have a definitive timetable for his return from injury.

The same goes for the return of the injured Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin, also two of the Wild's most important players.

All three players are essentially considered "week to week" in their injury progression. In one sense, that's at least better than the alternative of being out for the season.

In another sense, though, it puts the Wild in the worst of both worlds as they navigate the rest of the season.

The NHL trade deadline is Friday. The Wild already added Gustav Nyquist in a recent trade for a 2026 second-round pick.

The end of the regular season is a little less than six weeks away. Somewhere in between, all three players are expected back — but the uncertainty means that is not a guarantee.

As a result, the salary cap-strapped Wild are extremely limited in what else they can do — up to and including using a strange NHL cap rule to make their team extra strong for the playoffs, something Sarah McLellan and I talked about on Wednesday's "Daily Delivery" podcast.

Here's the crux of where things stand:

  • If the Wild knew all three players were going to be back soon — like, within the next two weeks at the most — they could have more confidence that further additions at the trade deadline are unnecessary to finish out the season and lock down a playoff spot. Minnesota has managed well without its injured players for much of the season, including going 14-10 in the 24 games Kaprizov has missed since late December. But there is no guarantee the team can keep it up.
  • If the Wild knew that at least one player — specifically Kaprizov at this point since he's the only one of the three on long-term injured reserve — was for sure going to miss the rest of the season, they could use that player's cap space to acquire more help at the trade deadline.
  • If the Wild thought at least one player might come close to missing the rest of the season, but they believed they could still win enough without him to make the playoffs and hopefully get that player back healthy for the postseason, they could also use that injured player's cap space. The NHL has an odd rule, which teams have been accused of using as a loophole in the past, that wipes the salary cap clean once the playoffs arrive. The Wild don't have enough money under the cap to take on significant salary in a trade if Kaprizov comes back before the regular season, but they would if Kaprizov was out for the rest of the regular season.

As such, it might be more beneficial to know one of these three players was going to miss a longer stretch of time. Instead, none of them are day to day, but none are out for the year.

And it's leaving the Wild with few options at the trade deadline.