ST. PAUL - Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek had missed the last 21 games with a lower-body injury. He had played only 42 games on the hearing coming into game 79 for the team. They are 28-12-3 with him in the lineup and are 15-17-4 without him in the lineup.

On Wednesday, we all saw how important he is to this team. Eriksson Ek gave the Wild a jolt in his return to the lineup. Kirill Kaprizov also entered the lineup after missing the last 28 games. They both combined for six goals and 17 shots. 

Eriksson Ek, 28, finished Wednesday with four goals, eight shots, and four hits. Every one of his goals was in Eriksson Ek’s office. The blue paint. 

“I mean he only knows one way,” Wild head coach John Hynes said on Eriksson Ek’s goals. “That’s the thing with Ekky is that’s how he plays. As I said, I thought that those guys are workhorses. When they said that they’re going to be ready to play, you knew that they were going to be ready to play the way that they need to play. And that’s how Ekky plays, regardless of the situation.”

The Wild center joked after the game that three of his goals were in the crease and that Ryan Hartman chirped Eriksson Ek for not scoring outside the crease so he responded with a goal from the slot in the third period. 

“They chirped me, or Hartzy did that they were all in the crease,” Eriksson Ek said. “So the fourth one was a little bit better.”

The message was clear when the injury happened in February and Wild General Manager Bill Guerin said at the trade deadline day that they will be expecting that both Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek would return before the regular season. 

He was right and man did they ever make an impact in there first game back.

Kaprizov tied the game 4-4 in the second period and Eriksson Ek answered that with three straight goals to give the Wild a 7-4 lead. 

The Sharks ended up scoring three unanswered to force overtime but Kaprizov picked up the winner. 

Is this what Eriksson Ek imagined for his and Kaprizov’s first games back would look like?

“Yeah, no. I feel just bad for Flower to be honest,” Eriksson Ek said. “Yeah, I don’t think we played that good in the defensive zone as you guys maybe saw. But today we found a way to win the game and that was the most important thing that we got those two points.”