Without Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon, Minnesota played a smart, poised and gutsy game, pulling away in the third for a 3-1 victory at Ball Arena.

The Minnesota Wild have had bad luck with injuries recently. Joel Eriksson Ek, Kirill Kaprizov, and Jacob Middleton headline the list of players who have missed time for a team with contending aspirations.

The 2024-25 NHL season continues to move along. With the season in full swing, a few teams have been trying to fight off the injury bug. One of those teams is the Minnesota Wild, which has had trouble keeping its blue line healthy.

Yakov Trenin and Brock Faber scored goals 1:35 apart early in the third period, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 in Denver on Monday.

Yakov Trenin scored against his former team early in the third period, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 on Monday.

With Yakov Trenin spending one-fourth of the opening period in solitary confinement, the Predators game operations folks waited until a second period media timeout to play a video showing

The Minnesota Wild are trying to hang onto their spot near the top of the NHL standings, and on Friday they revealed the reinforcements are on the way.

Kaprizov, who's been out since Dec. 23 with a lower-body injury, joined his first full practice since then on Friday as did defensemen Brock Faber (upper body) and Jared Spurgeon (lower body), according to The Athletic's Michael Russo.

Zach L'Heureux was suspended 3 games for a slew-foot on the Wild's Jared Spurgeon on Dec. 31. The Predators winger had to answer for the hit on Saturday.

Yakov Trenin fought L'Heureux while Marcus Foligno fought Luke Schenn two minutes into the game. Ryan Hartman joined in on the action, fighting Mark Jankowski a few minutes later. It was a busy penalty box at Bridgestone Arena Saturday night.

The Minnesota Wild feel a sense of urgency despite having nearly half a season left to play. After losing three in a row and four of their last five games, the Wild will look to turn things around on Monday afternoon against the host Colorado Avalanche in Denver.