MONTREAL — The Wild weren’t going to get through the season without injuries but it would have been nice not to start the parade to the training room so early.
After losing captain Jared Spurgeon to an upper body injury in the penultimate preseason game, the Wild are suddenly without one of their best forwards after Matt Boldy was injured in Saturday’s 7-4 loss at Toronto.
As a result, the Wild will skate with 11 forwards in Tuesday’s 6 p.m. puck drop against the Canadiens at Bell Centre.
“It’s tough, obviously, but it happens to every team,” coach Dean Evason said Monday after an afternoon practice Monday. “We need to step up in both his and Spurgy’s absence, obviously. It’ll be a really good test for us.”
Boldy is officially week to week with an upper body injury suffered when he was knocked to the ice by Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly midway through the third period on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena. The second-line winger had just scored his first goal of the season in the second period.
“That’s just the way it goes,” veteran wing Marcus Foligno said. “We’re hoping it’s one of those things where it’s a ding and you have to rest it and make sure the pain goes down. It’s frustrating because he’s been so good for us and he’s a big part of goal-scoring on our team. I told him, ‘I don’t feel so bad for you, I feel bad for us.’ ”
In his first full season last year, Boldy finished with 31 goals and 63 points and this season has been active in the Wild’s two games (1-1-0). He has a goal and assist, and on Saturday threw five shots on net, including a goal he skated in and shot behind Maple Leafs goaltender Sergei Samsonov.
“It’s tough, right?” Evason said. “I mean, Bolds has played really well, and obviously scored a goal (on Saturday) and wants to take the next step and score and lead, all that good stuff. It’s disappointing but it happens. We’ll get him healed up and we’ll get him ready.”
Filling roles
The Wild will play seven defensemen on Tuesday, adding Dakota Mermis to the mix, and Evason said they might occasionally throw a blue liner into Boldy’s spot alongside center Joel Eriksson Ek and winger Marcus Johansson.
Otherwise, they’ll rely on Kirill Kaprizov to fill a lot of those second-line shifts. Evason said he’d like to leave the Foligno-Marco Rossi-Freddie Gaudreau and Brandon Duhaime-Connor Dewar-Pat Maroon lines alone because they have “played so well.”
“We’ll finish talking about it today and then we’ll let the game kind of dictate what we do,” Evason said.
Johansson will move to the first power play unit, Evason said, and Foligno will skate on the second unit.
The D List
Evason said the Wild would shake up blue line partners after giving up seven goals on Saturday and it started during Monday’s practice at Bell Centre.
Jonas Brodin, who played with Brock Faber the previous two games, was on the left of Calen Addison, Faber was playing with Jake Middleton, and Mermis was playing with Jon Merrill and Alex Goligoski.
The Wild will have to decide before Thursday night’s game against the Los Angeles Kings at Xcel Energy Center whether to keep Mermis or swap him for a forward from AHL Iowa. Only about $818,000 under the salary cap, the Wild can’t yet afford to have an extra forward and defenseman.
Briefly
The Wild are hoping the extra shifts will help Kaprizov find the back of the net. The team’s leading scorer the past two seasons with a combined 87 goals, he has two assists and six shots on goal this season. … With Spurgeon out, Eriksson Ek has worn an “A,” joining Foligno and Kaprizov.
