He ended the game in the top six playing with Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov. The Wild's 2022 19th overall pick was rewarded in a game where he played great in. He now will start the game on Saturday against the Flames in a top-six role.

And the clearest signal that Kaprizov and Spurgeon would be back is that the Wild reassigned defenseman David Jiricek two hours after practice. If you did the salary cap math, it really was the only option to get below the cap ceiling once Kaprizov is activated from LTIR.