Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi could each make his NHL debut for the Minnesota Wild against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, SNE, SNO, SNP, NHL LIVE).
The forwards were each recalled from Iowa of the American Hockey League on Tuesday and coach Dean Evason told KFAN they likely would travel with the Wild for the game Thursday.
“They’re going to play in the National Hockey League,” Evason told the radio station. “It’s just a matter of when we’re going to get an opportunity to see them play in our atmosphere in the NHL within our group.”
Rossi, 20, has scored 23 points (seven goals, 16 assists) in 21 AHL games in his first professional season. The No. 9 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft was one of the final cuts in training camp and assigned to Iowa on Oct. 9. He led the Ontario Hockey League with 120 points (39 goals, 81 assists) in 56 games for Ottawa in 2019-20 and was expected to push for a spot last season.
Rossi was loaned to Zurich SC of National League, the top professional league in Switzerland, when the 2020-21 NHL season was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 in mid-November after playing one game.
Boldy, 20, has scored 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists) in 24 games during two AHL seasons. The No. 12 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft broke his left ankle in a 3-2 preseason win against the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 7 and is the only top-20 pick of the 2019 draft yet to play an NHL game.
The Wild (19-10-2) have lost five straight games (0-4-1), getting outscored 23-15.
“Clearly we haven’t had success here for a little bit,” Evason said. “We need to inject some youthful energy, some skill sets that we think can provide us with an opportunity to hopefully have success in Boston.”
Defenseman Jonas Brodin returned from NHL COVID-19 protocol Tuesday but the Wild remain without goalie Cam Talbot (lower body), defenseman Jared Spurgeon (lower body), and forwards Jordan Greenway (COVID-19 protocol) and Joel Eriksson Ek (upper body).
Talbot did not return for the third period of the 2022 Discover NHL Winter Classic on Saturday, when he allowed six goals on 28 shots in a 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues, and is out indefinitely.
“We’ve had some injuries, we’ve had some COVID cases and at the end of the day, we have to compete, we have to work, we have to get the job done and we have to turn this ship around,” Evason said.