Welp, the Wild’s joyride in the Sunshine State took a nosedive with two of their own hitting the injury list. Solid wall in the net, Marc-Andre Fleury, is nursing what’s under the hood with an upper body injury, while center ice trooper Connor Dewar is grounded with a lower body boo-boo. Hearts are breaking as Russo of The Athletic chirped out on Twitter that Dewar is benched on injured reserve. *Insert dramatic gasp*. But wait, the show must go on, and so Jake Lucchini parachutes in from AHL Iowa to fill those skates.
Now, don’t let Dewar’s underwhelming scorecard of a measly nine points throw ya. I’ll have you know, seven of those were net busters, a personal record for the dude – pretty snazzy for a fourth-liner clocking in barely more than a ten-minute celebrity guest appearance each game. Plus, he’s the third dude-in-command when it comes to the Wild’s special team of penalty killers. Joe Smith from The Athletic blew up our feeds with the buzz that Dewar might not catch a whiff of the ice again until the glitzy All-Star break.
Swooping in is our man Lucchini, no stranger to the yo-yo life of being jerked up and down between leagues. But with eleven candles on the cake for both goals and assists in twenty-eight minor-league shindigs, his stock’s rising for when calamity hits. Sneaking into four big league bouts with nary a point to his name, he’s hungry for it. Oh, and he’s an exclusive member of the measly fifteen-game-senior-league club, sponsored by a single lonely goal.
And before any cap space worriers pull their hair out, the Wild’s piggy bank is looking plumper these days. All thanks to Jared Spurgeon’s season kiss goodbye, sliding them some much-needed wiggin’ room on that cap space with his LTIR vacay. So, there you have it, Wild can keep playin’ musical chairs with their roster, and life in the rink goes on.