The Minnesota Wild got a little healthier on Thursday, activating Nico Sturm from injured reserve and sending Hunter Haight back to the AHL’s Iowa Wild in a corresponding move.
Sturm has spent the past week working back from an upper-body injury, though the injury was specifically to his head. It happened in the first period of Minnesota’s October 12 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights, when Wild captain Jared Spurgeon accidentally shot the puck into Sturm’s head. The two-time Stanley Cup champion was taken to a local hospital as a precautionary measure.
The 31-year-old forward had been in a limited role before the injury. In his second season of his second stint with Minnesota, Sturm has gone scoreless in three games while averaging 9:02 of ice time per game. Last season, he put up five goals and 11 points in 49 games, skating just under 11 minutes per night.
With the Wild dealing with a string of early injuries in the 2026-27 season, getting bodies back into the lineup is a welcome development. Sturm is expected to slide back into Minnesota’s bottom six against the Edmonton Oilers tonight.
Haight, meanwhile, is headed back to Des Moines almost as soon as he arrived. Minnesota recalled him two days ago as an extra forward, but he never got into a game. The former second-round pick now returns to the AHL after a strong start with Iowa, where he scored three goals and five points in six games and posted a plus-4 rating to open the season.
In Other News...
Wild Keep Getting Linked To A Trade Fans Will Obsess Over
The trade buzz around Dylan Larkin keeps growing, and Minnesota remains the team most tied to the situation. The 30-year-old Detroit center has requested a move, and the possibility of a deal has become a legitimate talking point around the league, with the Wild sitting right at the center of it because of his reported preference to land there.
Detroit, though, is not expected to let this go cheaply. The Red Wings are said to be looking for a premier return, and Larkins no-trade clause has helped complicate every layer of the discussion. For Minnesota, the intrigue is obvious: this is the kind of name that can alter a roster conversation in a hurry, even if the path to actually getting him remains tangled. [Read more 🡒]
Wild Fans Just Got A Painful Reminder Of That Marat Khusnutdinov Trade
Marat Khusnutdinov is already settling in with the Bruins, and Boston has moved quickly to make sure he stays a while. The forward, whom the Bruins picked up from the Wild at the 2025 trade deadline, has been extended on a three-year deal after carving out a role as a middle-six winger, a reminder that his transition to North America is starting to pay off in a real way for his new team.
For Minnesota, the update adds another layer to a deadline deal that already carried some long-term curiosity. Khusnutdinov was a second-round pick by the Wild in 2020 and had only arrived in North America midway through the 2023-24 season before getting moved, so there was always a sense that his next contract would say something about the value he was capable of reaching. Now that Boston has locked him in, Wild fans are left looking back at what went out the door and wondering how the trade will age from here. [Read more 🡒]
Wild Face A Franchise Defining Call On Danila Yurov
Danila Yurov has given the Wild exactly the kind of early-season jolt they were hoping to see from a young center trying to take hold in the NHL. Through the first stretch of his sophomore season, he has looked more comfortable in every area, with his scoring ticking up and his work at the dot becoming a real asset rather than just a nice bonus.
That kind of progress is what makes any conversation around his future in Minnesota so complicated. The Wild are trying to measure where they are in their competitive window and what it would take to push the roster closer to contender status, which is why Yurov has surfaced in a theoretical trade discussion built around a proven top-line center. No move has been made, but the very fact that a player with this much promise is part of the conversation says plenty about the franchises next big decision. [Read more 🡒]