On Feb. 9 against Vancouver, when Jason Zucker suffered a season-ending broken clavicle and Ryan Carter was hurt a few shifts before with an upper-body injury, Chuck Fletcher wondered if he would have to pull off a significant trade to save the Wild's season.
"By the same token," the Wild general manager said a night later in Winnipeg, "every time you have an injury, you can't just rush to the market and fill it via trade. Our first thought right now is just to provide this opportunity to the players that are here and we'll go from there."
The Wild has won six of eight since those injuries, and many of the players Fletcher named by name that Feb. 10 evening — Justin Fontaine, Jordan Schroeder, Matt Dumba — have "stepped up."
The Wild, back inside the playoff bubble for the first time since before Thanksgiving, is an NHL-best 11-1-1 since the All-Star break. It plays host to Edmonton, a team that has won four of 36 games against the Western Conference, on Tuesday night.
With so many Wild players in elevated roles proving they are capable of playing well, it might have altered Fletcher's trade-deadline thinking. Fletcher indicated Monday that his biggest objective now heading into the deadline is to improve the Wild's depth.
"We've got some guys hurt and players have stepped up and played well, but if you sustain more injuries, you just want to make sure you have enough bodies to get through the season," Fletcher said. "It's such a grind. March is a tough month for everybody. We have a lot of games and play some tough teams.
"If we can upgrade a certain area, obviously we'll always look to do that. But at a minimum, you want to make sure your depth is good. We have to make sure we know when our injured players are coming back. We could be fine. But I want to make sure."
Zucker's timetable for a return isn't until mid-May. Coach Mike Yeo said Monday that Carter and Matt Cooke are still week-to-week. Defenseman Jared Spurgeon is day-to-day because of what is believed to be concussion-like symptoms.