We're About To Find Out How Hard It Is To Replace Mats Zuccarello

Since signing with the Minnesota Wild in July 2019, the State of Hockey has been fretting about the moment Father Time would catch up with Mats Zuccarello. Five years later, the shifty forward seems to be avoiding decline as effectively as he avoids checks. His 84 goals and 281 points in 324 games inspired Minnesota to sign up for another two years of having the 37-year-old in the fold.

Was the bottom going to fall out? fans and media worried. Nope. Zuccarello started the season as good as ever, scoring six goals and 14 points through his first 16 games. Nothing was going to stop him.

That is, except for a Brock Faber slapshot.

Zuccarello underwent surgery overnight, and he's now on injured reserve and believed to be out for three-to-four weeks. Minnesota lost Joel Eriksson Ek to a lower-body injury in the same game, though he is considered day-to-day. Whenever Eriksson Ek is out of the lineup, it prompts a discussion about how he, and not Kirill Kaprizov, might be Minnesota's most irreplaceable player. He might be. His presence down the middle and two-way game is hard to backfill.

That discussion doesn't crop up around Zuccarello whenever he's absent. It's true that, while he's talented, he's not at the level of Kaprizov or Matt Boldy, nor does he have the positional value of an Eriksson Ek. But we'll see how critical Zuccarello is to this team over the next few weeks.

Give Minnesota all the credit in the world: They dealt with a ton of adversity last night, putting away the Montreal Canadiens while missing Zuccarello, Eriksson Ek, and Jonas Brodin. Losing two top-six forwards in the first period meant they had to play most of the game with 10 forwards. They gutted out a victory and even got the better of play at 5-on-5. 

You can't take that away from the Wild, but the next two weeks will see them play significantly tougher competition than the last-place Canadiens. Minnesota's next five games are against the Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and Winnipeg Jets. Four teams are currently in the playoff bubble, including the current Central Division leader and Western Conference Finalists next year. And the Wild will be short-handed.

Zuccarello has a massive role on this team. He's a top-line winger on a unit that's out-scored opponents 12-6 at 5-on-5. Kaprizov and Boldy are the only forwards who've logged more power play time than Zuccarello, and the Wild have scored goals more frequently with him on the ice (9.93 per hour) than anyone else. This was also the case last season.

It's no coincidence that Zuccarello is on the ice for so many power-play goals. He's been one of the most productive players on the man advantage since the start of the 2022-23 season. Zuccarello averaged 6.36 points per hour, ranking 24th among the 106 players with 300-plus PP minutes.

In terms of directly setting up goals, he's with the elite of the elite. He's 11th among that group of 106 with 2.79 primary assists per hour, which puts him ahead of top playmakers like Artemi Panarin, William Nylander, and Aleksander Barkov. While his famous chemistry with Kaprizov (who's scored 13 goals off his primary assists) comes into play, Zuccarello has directly fed Boldy for seven PP goals and Eriksson Ek for another six.

While he's not the player he was at 5-on-5, he's still capable of producing alongside Kaprizov and also does an above-average job of driving both offense and defense as a top-line forward.

Losing that is a big blow, and while perhaps not as catastrophic as missing Eriksson Ek or Kaprizov, it's pretty darn close. Last night, we saw how difficult life is for Minnesota without Zuccarello in the top-six. The Wild couldn't put together consistent lines at 5-on-5, and they moved Marcus Johansson up to the top power play to fill the playmaker role Zuccarello held. 

Going forward, John Hynes will likely use Kaprizov and Boldy on the same line at 5-on-5, which disrupts their top-six. Minnesota's scoring depth was held afloat because their two most dynamic wings were on separate lines. Without Zuccarello, they might not have that luxury, meaning either someone like Johansson or Ryan Hartman will need to step it up on the second line, or Liam Öhgren will need to show he's ready for the role after his four-game stint with the Iowa Wild. 

Minnesota might be able to get through this stretch all right. The Wild were able to keep winning when Eriksson Ek was out with a broken nose, and three to four weeks only amounts to 10 to 13 games, a relatively short part of the season. But anyone who might have overlooked Zuccarello's contributions may find themselves surprised at how much the veteran winger does to keep the offense going.