Wild's Injuries Require Kaprizov To Return To MVP Form

The Minnesota Wild are back on their "Everyone Is Injured" bulls*** again. After a plague of devastating injuries in the 2024-25 season, the Wild managed to get through about half the season relatively unscathed. But the specter of missed time comes for everyone, eventually, and it's Minnesota's turn to get bit.

In the span of a week, Jonas Brodin, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Matt Boldy have all landed on injured reserve. Marcus Johansson is also on the shelf, not traveling on the Wild's current road trip. If you're keeping score at home, that's four of Minnesota's eight best players in terms of Standings Points Above Replacement.

SPAR Leaders, Minnesota Wild, 2025-26 (Injured players in bold):

1. Jonas Brodin: 3.8
2. Matt Boldy: 3.5
3. Marcus Johansson: 2.8
4. Kirill Kaprizov: 2.6
5. Quinn Hughes: 2.5
6. Brock Faber: 2.4
7. Yakov Trenin: 2.4
8. Joel Eriksson Ek: 2.2

Ouch. It's hard to get much more dire than that. Fortunately, the Wild showed on Saturday what kind of mileage a decimated team can get with two MVP-caliber players.

The Wild's 5-4 overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres was ugly, for sure. Minnesota turned a 3-1 lead into a 3-4 deficit in the span of six minutes in the second period. On the road against a team as hot as the Sabres, who had won 15 of their past 17 contests heading into the game, the Wild's losing skid could easily have hit four games. 

But MVPs don't let their teams lose easily. Better yet, they elevate their club into winning games they shouldn't. That's what happened. First, Quinn Hughes knotted the game at 4-4 near the end of the second period.

But while Hughes dazzled with his fourth multi-point game in 17 outings with the Wild, Kaprizov did his part in putting the team on his back. He logged over 24 minutes and registered three assists, including the primary on Hughes' tying goal, and finding Mats Zuccarello across Royal Road to ice the game in overtime in the dying seconds of a power play.

The weirdest thing about Minnesota's season is how infrequently Kaprizov has felt like the Face of the Franchise. It's not because the soon-to-be $17 million man isn't putting up the requisite numbers. Kaprizov is tied for seventh in goals alongside big names like Leon Draisaitl and Tage Thompson. He's 13th in the NHL with 55 points. He leads the team with 168 shots, putting him in sixth-place league-wide.

So what is it? Maybe it's a rising tide in Minnesota? Matt Boldy has come out strong this season, surpassing Kaprizov in goals (27 to 25) and nearly equalling him with 51 points. And of course, Hughes was seen around the league as at Kaprizov's level, and he's shown early on that he might have just been better all along.

Boldy and Hughes's emergence added star power, but it's only part of the equation. The real reason Kaprizov felt somewhat underwhelming is that we've yet to see him at his best. Right now, Kaprizov's on pace for a 42-goal, 92-point season. That's awesome. If Boldy gets there, it'll be taken as a sign that Boldy has truly arrived as a superstar. But for Kaprizov? Well, that's below the 47 goals and 98 points he's averaged for his career. 

No one can really complain about Kaprizov's consistency. Every month, he has posted a point-per-game or better. But the magic of Kaprizov isn't getting a point-per-game like clockwork; it's his ability to get stupid-hot for a month or two. His October and November last season (17 goals, 31 points in 26 games) were so blistering that they single-handedly kept Minnesota afloat for the half-season he was out with injury. He's often powered the Wild down the stretch by scoring at a goal-per-game pace. 

With no Boldy, no Eriksson Ek, no Johansson, and after trading Marco Rossi, there aren't many people left to carry on a secondary scoring role. Ryan Hartman played over 22 minutes on Saturday. Zuccarello played an astounding 25:35. When the second line is Vladimir Tarasenko, rookie Danila Yurov, and Yakov Trenin, Kaprizov has to assert himself as the straw that stirs the Wild's drink.

Maybe some of it is just simply waiting for Kaprizov's luck to change. That sounds kind of nuts for a player who's shooting 14.9% on the season. Still, that's pretty low for someone with Kaprizov's scoring talent. Kaprizov is a career 16.2% shooter, which would give him two more goals if he'd kept that up through his first 49 games.

Again, it's not like Kaprizov isn't getting scoring chances. His 26.36 expected goals on the season are fifth in the NHL, behind just Connor McDavid, Dylan Larkin, Jake Guentzel, and Sam Reinhart. On a per-hour basis, that's the highest xG rate Kaprizov has ever generated. The thing is, he usually blows way past his xG figures, as you'll see from his year-by-year stats:

Kirill Kaprizov Goals (vs. Expected Goals), by year:

2020-21: 27 (18.95)
2021-22: 47 (29.59)
2022-23: 40 (35.42)
2023-24: 46 (38.95)
2024-25: 25 (21.97)
2025-26: 25 (26.36)

Until this season, Kaprizov has outperformed his xG in every year, scoring an average of 1.28 actual goals per expected goal. If he kept in line with his career average this season, he'd have 34 goals (rounded up from 33.65), putting him just two behind Nathan MacKinnon in the Rocket Richard Trophy race. We'd absolutely be looking at his season as an MVP-type campaign, worthy of even a $17 million price tag.

Everyone knows that Kaprizov has an insane run in him at some point; we just haven't seen it yet this season. With just him and Hughes as Twin Atlases holding the team up in the wake of all these injuries, they sure could use that hot streak at this exact moment.