The Wild on Wednesday placed Jonas Brodin, out with an injury to his right arm, on long-term injured reserve. The veteran defenseman will miss at least the next nine games.
Brodin was injured when Edmonton forward Evander Kane slammed him into the end boards during the Oilers’ 4-3 victory last Thursday at Rogers Place.
Using salary cap space cleared by Brodin being moved to LTIR, the Wild recalled three players from Iowa on Wednesday afternoon — forward Vinni Letierri, and defensemen Dakota Mermis and Daemon Hunt.
The second D could indicate that captain Jared Spurgeon won’t be available for Thursday night’s game against the Calgary Flames at Xcel Energy Center. After days off Monday and Tuesday, Spurgeon missed Wednesday’s practice for what coach John Hynes called maintenance.
Asked if Spurgeon would play Thursday, Hynes said, “As far as I know, yes.”
Spurgeon missed the season’s first 14 games because of an upper-body injury suffered in a preseason game, but over the Wild’s first seven games under Hynes (5-2-0), he is an NHL-best plus-9.
Losing Brodin is a blow. Losing both Brodin and Spurgeon, for any amount of time, would send the blue line into disarray. Both are among the best defensemen in the NHL. When he was hurt, Brodin was leading the team with 62 hits and in minutes played, an average of 23:59 a game.
Putting Brodin on LTIR temporarily discounts his $6 million salary from Minnesota’s salary cap total, but it requires he miss at least 10 games — he already missed Sunday’s 3-0 victory at Seattle — or 14 total days. It also precludes the Wild from accruing cap space while he’s unavailable.
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