ST. PAUL, Minn - The Minnesota Wild (1-0-0) host its expansion brothers the Columbus Blue Jackets (0-1-0) tonight for the Wild's home opener.

The Wild were without Jonas Brodin for the first game of the season in St. Louis on Thursday but will welcome him back tonight.

"Yeah, no, I’m really excited. It’s been good rehab over the summer," Brodin said. "I’ve been working hard and feel ready to play now. It’s exciting to play in front of the fans here again at home. So I’m excited."

Brodin said he finished the season healthy but then he went and played in the World Championships and was fine. But in one of the games something came up and he got surgery to fix an upper-body injury.

He says he is healthy and ready to go for tonight.

"Yeah, something came back and forth last year," Brodin said on the injury. "I felt good in World Championship and then something happened there in one of those games there. That was good, it’s good to get it fixed so I’m 100 percent this year."

Wild head coach said that David Jiricek will likely be the guy that is out tonight for Brodin. Zach Bogosian had been playing on his off-side so Jiricek could play the right-side.

But with Brodin back tonight, Jiricek will sit and Bogosian will go back to the right-side. The indication from Hynes is that Brodin will likely play with Brock Faber. This would slide Jake Middleton down to the third pair with Bogosian.

They could do Brodin and Bogosian as well. The two of them played a lot together last year. Either way, Hynes said Zeev Buium is staying with Jared Spurgeon.

"Yeah we would probably keep Buium with Spurgey," Hynes said. "Once I get through it with it, whether we do Midsy with Bogo or Brods with Bogo, that would be the determination."

Danila Yurov sat out for the Wild's season opener in St. Louis and will sit out again tonight. His debut will have to wait. Hynes did say earlier that he anticipates Yurov's debut to come at home in these next two games.

Since it is not tonight, it could be Monday against the Los Angeles Kings. We will see.

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