Wild walking taller with the prospect of a healthy Kirill Kaprizov ‘excited to do some damage'

New York Times

19-04-2025

LAS VEGAS – This is the Minnesota Wild.
They usually don't have players in the Hart Trophy conversation. When Kirill Kaprizov shattered franchise records in 2021-22 with 47 goals and 108 points, his seventh-place finish for the Hart was by far the highest in franchise history.
That's why so many folks around the Wild, not to mention the fan base, were so excited when Kaprizov was considered the Hart Trophy favorite in December, when he had scored 23 goals and 50 points in his first 34 games for a team that was atop the NHL standings.
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Then, he disappeared, and so did his chances to win the coveted hardware.
Does such a lost opportunity bother the Wild star?
'No,' Kaprizov said quickly followed by a hearty laugh. 'It was just 35 games. It was good for you guys. You can talk — the media and stuff, but I don't care. Because it was just 40 games, 35 games.'
In other words, Kaprizov offered a reality check, a reminder, that there's 82 games in a season and he had a long way to go to prove he was the NHL's most valuable player to his team. And considering he had to stop playing after Christmas and missed more than three months — beyond a three-game trial in late January to convince himself that it was time to get his injury surgically repaired — he pretty much proved that MVP talk before midseason is a wee bit premature and basically fodder for, yes, the press.
'I mean, it's fun, it's nice,' Kaprizov said of all the early-season accolades. 'I can hear about it from the boys in the locker room or from Sicky (Wild media relations director Aaron Sickman) or you guys texting me, but I usually don't (listen) to all this stuff and just play my game. Sometimes you can focus on this and it's not a help to you in your game. For me, I don't care now because I know how I need to be like. But sometimes young guys like 20 years old, 22 years old, I think it's hard to read and listen to everything. You have (a) good game, you read and think, 'Oh, I'm so good.' Then, bad game and he reads and now thinks, 'I'm not great.'
'So I don't read.'
Ever?
'No,' Kaprizov said.
Wait, what?
'Oh, you guys, yes, only you guys,' Kaprizov said, sarcastically.
Boy, oh boy, it's good to have Kaprizov and his bubbly personality back in the room and, more importantly for the Wild heading into this first-round playoff series that starts Sunday night with the Vegas Golden Knights, on the ice.
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As all Wild fans know — and especially Kaprizov's teammates during this grind of an injury-riddled season — the last four months have been a chore. But the Wild enter the playoffs with four wins in their final five regular-season games, three with Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek back in the lineup.
Eriksson Ek scored five goals, including a season-saving goal with 22 seconds left in the finale against Anaheim to put the Wild in the postseason for the 11th time in the past 13 years. Kaprizov scored two goals, including the overtime winner in his return against San Jose, and two assists, including one on Mats Zuccarello's overtime winner in the penultimate game at Vancouver.
Kirill. Kaprizov. pic.twitter.com/aBrDte2JQs
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) April 10, 2025
Kaprizov has high standards for himself, so as much as his presence has made the Wild look more dangerous and certainly more exciting, he has admitted that he's still trying to scrape off the rust.
In Calgary last week, he struggled to get into the fight — as did the team.
He called his game in that one-sided defeat, 'eh.'
In Vancouver, in a come-from-behind victory, he called his game 'a little better.'
'You can see,' Kaprizov said. 'When I feel good, my legs are working better and I skate better and everything. (In Vancouver), it was a little better, I feel. When you start pushing more, it's easy to create chances.'
Kaprizov also won't say that he's 100 percent. Him at 50, 60 or 70 percent is still better than most NHLers, but he's unwilling to say if he's still feeling the effects of the significant surgery he underwent on Jan. 31.
He's just glad he got four regular-season games in, because after missing a month in late 2023 and being held out of two of the final four games, Kaprizov said he couldn't find his game in the Dallas playoff series last year, and he never scored again after a series-opening goal.
'I don't know,' Kaprizov said when asked how he's feeling. 'We'll see in playoffs. I don't like say something good or bad or think about injury. Hopefully (it's not an issue) game to game and I play with good team structure. And just try not to think about it. Just try be myself. That's it.'
KIRILL KAPRIZOV pic.twitter.com/HoMx0D4BMf
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) April 10, 2025
This had been a long three months for Kaprizov. After complaining about the injury before Christmas, he finally had to stop playing, and he hoped rest and treatments would allow him to return and get through the season non-surgically. He sought advice from specialists in and out of Minnesota. After three games, he underwent surgery in New York. But even he never envisioned that his surgeon would put such a conservative two-month timetable on his return. He thought, as Bill Guerin told the media in advance of Kaprizov's surgery, that it would be a 'minimum of four weeks.'
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'It's brutal,' Kaprizov said, laughing, as he repeated the word used by a reporter who said 'it had to be brutal.'
'It's not fun. It's so boring,' he said. 'I never had a season like this. I've never not played 40 games, three months. You just came here (to TRIA Rink) sometimes when team on the road and just do your stuff every day. You don't do skating, you just go in the gym, you do same things all the time. It's just so boring. But you need to do it. You want to come back faster, but sometimes you can't do this because your body don't let you. Just a boring time.'
So what did Kaprizov do to bide time?
'I just was here usually from the morning to daytime, then usually go to nap after, to home. Then take walk, do dinner somewhere. Play a little computer.'
But then Kaprizov again laughed: 'But not too much, because it was boring, too, already. Usually after road, you come back home and you can't wait to play computer. It's, 'OK, just play a little.' But when always home, you just don't want to play sometimes. So I watched hockey on TV, other teams and our team, how the guys play. That's it.'
As he reiterated, boring.
The Wild are huge underdogs heading into this series with the 2023 Stanley Cup champs, but for the first time since November, the Wild have their full lineup available. Eriksson Ek looks like he really took advantage of his rest during his six weeks off, while Kaprizov continues to try to find his game.
Teammates are happy to have him back and are walking a little taller now that their star is suiting up again.
'Obviously, time is going to tell,' veteran Marcus Foligno said. 'But I just think with that type of player, being rested and being mentally rested, too, I think is good for Kirill. I think he's excited to play and continue to play. The stuff that he went through has been bothering him for a bit longer than people probably think. And I think it's just gonna benefit us even more having a guy like that who's excited, eager and hungry to contribute again, like he did in the start of the season where, he was a Hart candidate in my eyes. The fact he's still probably not 100 percent is pretty scary. So if we can get this guy 100 percent and excited to do some damage, then that's good for us.'
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Told that Kaprizov isn't bothered by his Hart chances being blown as much as his teammates, Foligno joked self-deprecatingly that's because his '35 games were my career though. I don't know what he's talking about.'
'I feel like it reflected kind of in our season, right?' Foligno said. 'Like, it was a good start and you've got to go without your best player for a long time. But all of us want to see Kirill ay the top and being talked about, because he deserves it and the type of person he is off the ice, too. So, yeah, it's frustrating when you see a guy having a career season, and it gets cut short. What the best thing about this is it happened earlier rather than later, and we get him back.'
Kirill Kaprizov ties for 4th in latest NHLPA player poll for "Best Overall Forward" https://t.co/E88zIAFQNZ pic.twitter.com/tV9UoutnU4
— AJ Fredrickson (@AJ_FREDRICKSON) April 15, 2025
Kaprizov being back and on top of his game would be the biggest game-changer heading into this series. In his playoff debut against Vegas in 2021, he got better and better as the series moved along. The Wild rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force Game 7, scoring goals in games 5 and 7. But he only had 10 shots in the series as Vegas did a terrific job against him.
Coach John Hynes says, 'You need big-time players to be big-time players at the most intense time of the year.' The Wild are confident Kaprizov can get back to that early-season Kaprizov. and the version that was so good against St. Louis in 2022, when he scored seven goals in six games, including the only playoff hat trick in Wild history.
And as Kaprizov says, he has never missed half a season, so looking at the bright side, he's a lot more rested than many of the Vegas opponents that will be tasked with neutralizing him.
'That's a benefit, probably for Ekky and Kirill, just that they were off for a long period of time,' Hynes said. 'Now, that time isn't easy. They had their own issues that they had to deal with. But I think the rigors of the season and the miles that get put on as a you go through 82 games, hopefully that can help those guys in the series.'