Wild recall Hammond to replace injured Talbot, Greenway in COVID protocol

The Minnesota Wild are on a five-game losing streak and the one player that has stolen some games for them recently, might not be on the roster for a little bit.

After two periods of the Winter Classic on Saturday, goaltender Cam Talbot had to be replaced by backup Kaapo Kahkonen, and it wasn’t just because they were down by a lot of goals. Later, it was revealed that he had to leave the ice due to a lower-body injury and the Wild’s starter that has had the ultimate trust to be the final wall of defense to carry them through a successful early season, will be missing an unknown amount of time.

In a move following the injury, Minnesota announced on Monday that they have recalled goaltender Andrew Hammond from AHL Iowa.

Whether this is a move to just have a second goaltender at practice (since taxi squad members are participating at the NHL practices) will become more clear once we get an official update on Talbot’s injury. But on the plus side, the Wild only play two games this week, due to their game against the Ottawa Senators being postponed — first visiting the Boston Bruins on Thursday and then having the Washington Capitals come over to Minnesota on Saturday. This will hopefully provide enough time for Talbot to recover from whatever ails him at this time, or else we will be seeing a risky Kahkonen-Hammond tandem.

Through nine appearances for Iowa, Hammond has earned a .919 save percentage and a 2.09 goals against average.

In addition to the Hammond move, the Wild have also placed defenseman Calen Addison back to the taxi squad after replacing Jonas Brodin for the Winter Classic. This more or less confirms that Brodin will be back for the game against the Bruins after testing positive for COVID last week. The one interesting little tidbit is that Addison isn’t getting sent back down to Iowa right away, especially since the AHL Wild are scheduled to play on Tuesday; making this not as simple as a move to keep him around the first team until the minor-league team actually needs him in the lineup.

Addison is currently joined by blueliner Dakota Mermis and forward Connor Dewar on the taxi squad, in addition to Hammond.

ALSO, forward Jordan Greenway was absent for practice on Monday and later it was discovered that he has entered the NHL’s COVID protocol list. Is this the start of another outbreak and more game postponements? Hopefully not. It’s a good sign that he is the only non-injured player missing from practice.