A Wild surprise: Zucker could return before end of regular season
MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. -- When Jason Zucker broke his collarbone in early February, his season with the Minnesota Wild was thought to be possibly finished. Zucker's breakthrough campaign would at least be on hold until the playoffs started with May set as a possibly timetable.
With Minnesota taking the ice at St. Thomas, Zucker was on the ice Friday with the rest of his teammates, returning to a full practice for the first time since surgery on Feb. 12. Zucker's surprise return was then advanced with head coach Mike Yeo's declaration after practice that the team is eyeing to have Zucker back in the lineup before the end of the regular season.
"I was actually impressed," Yeo said. "You can tell he's been putting the work in conditioning-wise. He's a little further ahead than what I was expecting."
Yeo said Zucker could possibly return for the final two games. Minnesota hosts Detroit on Saturday and Winnipeg on Monday to finish the home portion of the regular season. The Wild end the season with three road games at Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis.
If the accelerated timeline is met, Zucker could return within a week when Minnesota plays at Nashville on April 9 or St. Louis on April 11.
"That's kind of the plan," Zucker said. "Hopefully practice keeps progressing and I keep getting better execution-wise in practice and would be able to get in a few games at the end."
Zucker's last game was Feb. 9, in the early stages of Minnesota's second-half run to a likely third consecutive playoff appearance. When he was injured, Zucker was second on the team with 18 goals, and fourth in shots (116) and hits (64).
While the collarbone has healed, Zucker has skated on his own. He said he's been skating and shooting for the past "four, five weeks." Zucker doesn't feel conditioning will be an issue.
"After skating alone for so long, it's always nice to be with the team," Zucker said, later adding the biggest hurdle is taking contact. "Today was a good first step. I didn't take a lot of contact today. It's just getting back into that and the execution level under contact, as well."
Zucker, 23, had already surpassed his previous career-highs with 18 goals and 23 points this season and had developed into one of the Wild's most important forwards. He was on one of the Minnesota's top two lines before the injury and was also playing penalty kill.
"It's tough," Zucker said of being out. "You never want to be out. You always want to be with your team and helping them in any way that you can. But they've been playing great as everyone knows. It's always good to see them winning."
Yeo said forward Erik Haula will rejoin the lineup for Saturday's game against Detroit after being a healthy scratch for one game. Ryan Carter will come out of the lineup, while Haula joins Kyle Brodziak and Jordan Schroeder on the fourth line.
"I think (Carter's) been doing a good job and we're just trying to work with him," Yeo said of Carter, who also recently returned from injury. "It's going to take some time for him to get his game back to where it was completely. But I think he's done some good things both on the PK [penalty kill] and bringing some good offensive zone shifts."
The fourth line could be a game-to-game situation as Yeo juggles having several players return from health. Yeo said forward Matt Cooke, on injured reserve after sports hernia surgery, could possibly return for Tuesday's game at Chicago.
"He got it pretty good on the ice today and you can tell conditioning-wise, he's not where he needs to be yet," Yeo said. "But we got a little bit of time between now and then and the other thing that I will say is there's no better conditioning than game conditioning; getting into the game and just getting your feet wet there."
Forward Sean Bergenheim missed Friday's practice with an illness and defenseman Ryan Suter was held out for a "maintenance day," according to Yeo.
Yeo said defenseman Nate Prosser will be back in the lineup Saturday, as well.
Prosser has missed eight games with a lower-body injury.
"Maybe as good as I've seen him play in my time coaching him, to be honest with you," Yeo said of Prosser's play before suffering a knee injury. "There were so many good stories that there was a lot of things being talked about, but that was obviously a huge part of our season when you're talking about some of the key defensemen we had out of the lineup and what we were asking him to do in a defensive role, going against top players, the role that he had in our penalty kill -- which was so strong -- and doing it all on the left side which is not his normal position. I think he really helped us get through a tough time."
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