Yahoo Sports Wild's Plan Without Matt Boldy
ST. PAUL - Wild forward Matt Boldy has been out the last week with a lower-body injury. Wild head coach John Hynes said on Saturday that the team believes he will need to get several practices in before the home opener on October 10th.
“I would anticipate at this time that he will be in several practices prior to playing," Hynes said. "If for some reason he’s not, I think it would be where his conditioning is at, how he feels where he’s at and put him in the best position to be able to be who we need him to be.”
Regardless, the Wild have a pretty good plan in place if Boldy isn't ready.
Ryan Hartman took Boldy's spot on the power play in Friday's game against the Winnipeg Jets. The Wild scored two power-play goals that game and Hartman finished the night with one assist.
Liam Ohgren replaced Boldy on the second line with Yakov Trenin and Joel Eriksson Ek. Trenin will likely start the season on a line with Marcus Foligno and Marco Rossi but he played with Ohgren and Eriksson Ek on Friday.
Related: Eriksson Ek Records Five Points in His Preseason Debut
"It's great, he's good as well," Ohgren said on playing with Eriksson Ek. "He's Swedish too so it makes it a little bit easier for me. But yeah, it's amazing to play with him. He is a great player and I like it."
Ohgren, 20, had a tough first preseason game in Dallas so Hynes wanted to see if the rookie could bounce back on Friday against the Jets. Ohgren answered by scoring a goal.
“Yeah, obviously I didn’t feel that good the first game, so I just wanted to play a little bit simple, get the pucks deep and go to the net," Ohgren said on if he tried to simplify his game. "Obviously, I scored a goal, and that always helps with the confidence. So, it was better today.”
On Saturday Ohgren was taking line rushes with Eriksson Ek and Marcus Johansson. Without Boldy here is how the lines looked.
Kaprizov - Hartman - Zuccarello
Johansson - Eriksson Ek - Ohgren
Trenin - Rossi - Foligno
Lauko - Khusnutdinov - Gaudreau
Jake Middleton was with Jared Spurgeon, Brock Faber was with Jonas Brodin, and Declan Chisholm was with Zach Bogosian. Ben Jones was also the extra forward on Saturday.
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