- Mats Zuccarello will not play in Game 2 with an upper-body injury
- He had three assists in the Wild’s 6-1 Game 1 rout of Dallas
- Read below for the Game 1 video and how Minnesota is running its lines without him
The Wild are heading into Game 2 without the guy who set the tone Saturday.
Mats Zuccarello has an upper-body injury and will miss Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Monday night, per NHL.com. He was on the ice for morning skate and looked fine. When warmups started, he was not in line rushes.
That is a brutal blow for a team that came into Dallas and tied the franchise record for its largest playoff win. Zuccarello had three assists in the 6-1 rout, including two on the power play, while buzzing all over the ice alongside Ryan Hartman and Kirill Kaprizov. The video of the Game 1 highlights shows exactly what Minnesota is missing in the short term.
The injury is believed to have come from Stars defenseman Tyler Myers, whose elbow to Zuccarello’s head drew the first penalty of the series. Minnesota cashed in on that power play when Joel Eriksson Ek beat Jake Oettinger to set the early tone.
Vladimir Tarasenko slides up to the top line in Zuccarello’s spot, giving Hartman and Kaprizov a proven scorer on the right side. Bobby Brink, acquired from Philadelphia on March 6, draws in for his Stanley Cup Playoff debut. Nick Foligno bumps up to the third line with Brink and Danila Yurov.
Hartman also takes Zuccarello’s spot on the top power-play unit with Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Eriksson Ek and Quinn Hughes. Kaprizov has been electric in this postseason, as his three-point Game 1 pushed him past Wayne Gretzky on the NHL’s all-time playoff goals-per-game list.
Zuccarello finished with 54 points (15 goals, 39 assists) in 59 regular-season games. He came into the series with 61 points in 103 career playoff games and was expected to be a steady right hand on Minnesota’s top line for the entire run.
With the Wild up 1-0 and aiming for their first 2-0 playoff lead in franchise history, the next 60 minutes just got a lot heavier without him.
