Defenseman Tyler Cuma, the Wild’s first-round pick last June, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Friday in Minnesota.
Cuma, who plays for the Ontario Hockey League’s Ottawa 67s, will miss at least eight weeks and is likely out for the season, Wild assistant GM Tom Thompson said Friday night when I ran into him at the Gophers game.
It was revealed in an MRI on Friday morning that Cuma, who sustained a sprained MCL, had cartilage detached from the bone.

Coming to you live from a Minneapolis coffee shop where I decided to come to get some work done. Sometimes you just have to admit you’ve got a problem, and I admit it. I like coffee. So shoot me.

Actually, they know me here and had the IV ready.

Just a quick update. Stensaas will be on later.  

According to multiple sources, the Wild placed center Krys Kolanos on waivers at 11 a.m. A team can claim him by at 11 a.m. tomorrow, but the Wild has reassigned him to AHL Houston.

Kolanos fizzled recently and Jacques Lemaire never seemed overly enamored with him. Kolanos had one goal and two assists the past 11 games.

The Wild has called up center Peter Olvecky, who never really got much of a shot in a nondescript training camp. His girlfriend from back home, at least as of the first couple months this season, actually goes to school here in the Twin Cities.

Heck of a 24 hours for agent Allan Walsh, eh? Pierre-Marc Bouchard, two and one. Milan Michalek, two. Michael Frolik, one and two. And Olvecky’s been unlocked and will be getting his first taste of the National Hockey League.

Speaking of unlocked, Corey Locke isn’t. He’s having a great offensive season down in Houston and just starred in the All-Star Game, yet he’s not getting a sniff yet. From what I’ve heard from people inside the organization at times, Locke, who once starred in junior with a fella named Matt Foy, is super-skilled but has a tendency to score goals at both ends of the rink if you catch my drift. His size is also a bit of an issue.

Like I said, Stensaas on later. Back to work. Refillll please.

Saturday correx: In the article, I should have written Gaborik missed his 31st out of 37 games tonight, not 37th game. Careless error, apologies. As I wrote on the bottom of this blog, I’m off to Denver. Stensaas on tonight. He’ll blog after morning skates.

9 p.m. update: I just got off the phone with Gaborik’s agent Ron Salcer.

He just clarified some more things told to Gaborik from Dr. Marc Philippon. He said he’s spoken to the doctor on four or five occasions.

“He made it really clear it’s not a gray issue. It’s black and white. He’s written published reports on this issue. It’s unequivocal. His playing will create more damage. That’s the deal-breaker.

“The doctor even said, ‘His right hip is perfect. It’s 100 percent. I tell you, if I do this surgery, without a doubt, there’s a 93-percent chance he’ll be as good or better than he has ever been, but we need to do it now. The longer he waits, the more damage he’ll curtail. He made it abundantly clear that Marian is a young player who’s an elite athlete with world-class speed that can have long-term effects if he plays on it.

“Marian wants to play in the worst way. He’s willing to play in pain. He’s willing to play hurt. But we’ve got to draw the line if he’s going to do damage to himself.”

Asked about the future and whether there will still be a huge market for Gaborik: “I’m not going to speculate on what may happen. The most important thing right now is for Marian to get healthy. We’re very confident in the doctor. He’s said that Marian’s got a very bright future ahead of him and we’ll go from there.

“You know, Marian’s got to have confidence in his body. We’re going to fix this thing. That’s what the doctor said. Twice he got close, but he was never right and he had two setbacks.”

On the Wild appearing as if it’s not supporting this: “As I told you, Marian wanted to play. But you can’t ask a 26-year-old to do damage and go ahead and keep playing. We certainly don’t support that, and I’d think they would, too. I mean, this was their idea that he see this doctor in the first place.”

———————————————————————

Marian Gaborik is scheduled to have surgery on his left hip on Monday in Vail, Colo.

The surgery will address a deficiency in his hip that has caused chronic left groin pain. The surgeon has apprised the team that a return to play from this surgery is as soon as ten weeks, with the player able to begin skating after six weeks.

That’s from the team. What it left out is the rest of the timetable, according to Gaborik, which is 10-14 weeks. That’ll take it past the March 4 trade deadline obviously, and almost to the end of the season if it goes the hefty side of those numbers. 

One Doug Risebrough quote said everything you need to know about how about much the Wild supports Gaborik’s decision to have surgery: “I’m disappointed that he won’t be here with us for this point in the season. But, you know, this is the choice that Marian has made. So I have no other comment.”

I think now we know for certain what the animated conversation Risebrough and Gaborik were having by the Zamboni entrance before Sunday’s game.

The Wild didn’t want to have surgery. Gaborik did.

Risebrough convinced him to skate for a few days and try to play against San Jose. Gaborik did skate, felt pain and said, that’s it, I’m doing the surgery.

I talked to a very frustrated Gaborik today, one who said he’s more than willing to play in pain as long as he knows he’s not doing long-term damage to his hip. But he says Dr. Marc Philippon told him he would make it much worse and potentially cause a much more serious surgery that would knock him out for half a year.

Gaborik’s got a lot of things going on in there — a torn labrum, cartilage flapping, bone on bone.

(more…)

Here is the story

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from an always iron-clad source telling me that Marian Gaborik went to Colorado to see a specialist over the break. I wrote that in today’s paper because I got it confirmed from a secondary source.

What I didn’t write today is that the source also said it was recommended Gaborik have season-ending surgery. If you read last night’s blog, I alluded to this, but I felt I couldn’t write it because I couldn’t get it confirmed 100 percent from assistant GM Tom Lynn.

I’ve been digging at this all day and felt I was getting close enough to this being the truth that I got in touch with Lynn again. 

This time, Lynn confirmed to me that over the next two days, the Wild is examining all of its Gaborik options. The most likely, it appears, is for Gaborik to have surgery on what Lynn described as a “hip deficiency” that’s been causing Gaborik groin pain all year.

Last May, Gaborik had surgery on his right hip to repair a torn labrum. This is to his left hip, Lynn said, and he reiterated it’s a deficiency that involves a lot of things, including his labrum.

If Gaborik has surgery, he can begin skating in a matter of weeks, Lynn said, but he’d be out until at or near the end of the season.

This is catastrophic, and I’m not talking about what this does to the team this season.

The Wild likely would have an untradeable asset, one that would likely walk at the end of the season. From Gaborik’s perspective, there is no chance he’d command anything close to around the $8 million a year the Wild offered him at the start of the season.

I’ve had calls into Gaborik all day. He hasn’t called me back yet. Nor has his agent.

I talked to Doug Risebrough this morning, and the reason I got real suspicious to pursue this story? When I asked if he was worried Gaborik wouldn’t play again this season, Risebrough basically said yes. When I told him I had heard it was recommended Gaborik have season-ending surgery, he said, “I’m not commenting.”

Like I said, Lynn is saying it wouldn’t necessarily be season-ending surgery, but pretty much so.

The big question now: Does Marian Gaborik ever wear a Wild sweater again?

(more…)

I guess it wasn’t so weird a few weeks ago when I wrote about Joel Quenneville wearing a Blackhawks jacket in the stands. Four games into the season, Denis Savard is gone in Chicago. I’d say there’s pretty good pressure to win, eh?

OK, on to the Wild, where it was a pretty busy day down at the Bank.

Marian Gaborik is out tonight with what the team is calling a “lower body” injury. That means three of the Wild’s top six forwards and one of its top four defensemen are already injured and out. The Wild has changed Pierre-Marc Bouchard from back to lower body. I thought the back was upper. Maybe it’s middle.

Owen Nolan is lower body. Marek Zidlicky has a sprained ankle, but the Wild is calling it lower body.

More on this policy below, one in which Doug Risebrough conveyed to the players during a team meeting before today’s skate.

Defenseman Tomas Mojzis will make his Wild debut tonight, only at wing. He seemed a little worried about the position change in his first game, but he was very excited to get in. And if you’ve watched his offensive instincts, he might be a good wing if he gets some ice time.

The way players are dropping like the stock market, Jacques Lemaire joked that the team would wait to call a player up after tonight’s game just in case they get a few more injuries. This way they can only make one call to Houston and “save 50 cents.”

I don’t know when Gaborik hurt his “lower body” because he was certainly playing soccer hackysack/volleyball for about 45 minutes yesterday with Andrew Brunette, Mikko Koivu, Antti Miettinen and Eric Belanger. He did have his right upper thigh/groin area wrapped with ice after the game in Atlanta when he was interviewed by me, but that’s not abnormal with Gaborik, who gets iced down after every game due to his history of groin, hip and other leg ailments.

Gaborik was nowhere to be found this morning and I did not see him getting treatment, but he could have been there and I just didn’t see him. I did look.

Doug Risebrough swears he’s injured and is not being held out for any ulterior reasons, like I’m sure you’re speculating on. I left a message on Gaborik’s cell. I have a call into Gaborik’s agent, Ron Salcer, whom I talked to last night, to make sure. Salcer flew into Tampa yesterday so he could meet with Gaborik this weekend, but there has been no meeting scheduled with Risebrough or assistant GM Tom Lynn.

In fact, both Salcer yesterday and Risebrough today said that there has been no talking whatsoever between the sides at all.

Of course, any injury to Gaborik not only hurts his bargaining power with the Wild, but the Wild’s ability to trade him. This just again reinforces the continuous injury worries with Gaborik.

(more…)

Assistant GM Tom Lynn confirmed after today’s practice that defenseman Marek Zidlicky, considered to be the Wild’s most significant offseason acquisition, will miss Saturday’s opener with an ankle injury.

Lynn said the Wild will try to get Zidlicky ready for next week.

I talked with Zidlicky. He said he sprained his ankle with four minutes left in the Sept. 26 exhibition game in Chicago when a Blackhawks player fell on top of him. He played the rest of the game.

He said he felt something “pop,” but that x-rays are negative and it’s sprained.

He said he tried to skate, but it’s still too sore. He’s disappointed he won’t be ready to play in the home opener, but said he’s working hard off the ice in an attempt to make his Wild debut on next week’s road trip.

He said at the time of the injury, team doctors said it would be two weeks minimum. Two weeks is Friday.

In the meantime, Erik Reitz or Tomas Mojzis will replace Zidlicky in Saturday’s lineup. It’ll probably be Reitz. Remember, Jacques Lemaire said he’d play his “best lineup” last Saturday in Montreal, and Lemaire chose to dress Reitz and not Mojzis.

And Reitz played quite well against the Canadiens.

As for other news, defenseman John Scott will be placed on injured reserve with a sprained ankle. Scott will make his prorated minor-league salary and won’t count against the salary cap.

Also, it’s anticipated that Barry Brust will be assigned to AHL Houston this afternoon. Josh Harding looks A-OK to back up Niklas Backstrom on Saturday.

As for the forward lines, they remained the same today:

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