Wild Player of the Month: Joel Eriksson Ek

A poor month has not slowed down the Wild's best center in the slightest, and no Canucks fans, you still can't have him.

The Wild entered the first month of 2024 near the bottom of the standings with just 36 points, but full of hope that they would be able to string together a solid enough month to get them back into the playoff picture. A disappointing 31 days and 14 games later they are sitting exactly where they started the month, just with less runway to still make the playoffs. An inadequate five wins in January has placed the team the same distance from being a bottom-five team in the NHL as being in a wildcard position. 

As hard as it can be to have a positive outlook on a month that has almost eliminated their hopes of another playoff berth, there have been some points to the Wild’s play that have been cause for optimism. Kirill Kaprizov’s return from injury has seen him produce 11 points in just eight games, Brock Faber and Marco Rossi are both well on their way to being Calder trophy finalists, but the most impressive player by far is our Minnesota Wild player of the month for January: Joel Eriksson Ek.

His Value is Off-the-Charts

A lot of Wild fans fell prey to the Vancouver Canucks fans' taunts of trying to acquire Eriksson Ek from the Wild before the trade deadline. I would argue that they might have an easier time trying to pry Kirill Kaprizov or Matt Boldy from the hands of the President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Bill Guerin.

---

Note: For the week of the All-Star Break, The Hockey Writers will give premium content free previews. If you want to subscribe to get all of our great content after the All-Star Break, and get a 24% discount on the annual plan, subscribe by clicking the graphic.