Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov needs surgery on the lingering lower body injury he recently returned from and will be sidelined for at least a month.
General manager Bill Guerin said Tuesday that Kaprizov is expected to be back with the team later this season.
"Kirill is going to be out for, I guess what I can describe as a lower body injury, and it'll be week to week. It is not a season ending injury," Guerin said Tuesday. "It will put him on the shelf for the next little while. We've been down this road before. It's unfortunate, I mean Kirill was having a Hart Trophy type season, but it's disappointing for him. It's disappointing for us too."
The impact of his absence will be stemmed a bit by the two-week break on the NHL schedule next month for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
After missing 12 games, Kaprizov rejoined the Wild last week. He played in three games but was not himself, and the mutual decision was made to shut him down and get him fixed.
"We put ourselves in a good situation in the standings, it's not the end of the world, we're going to keep playing," Guerin adds.
The 27-year-old has 23 goals and 29 assists in 37 games and was playing at an MVP level before he got hurt.
"You can get mad, you can be sad, you can get frustrated all you want," Guerin says. "It doesn't fix it. You just have to handle it. And there's no being emotional about it, doesn't get you anywhere. You know what, we've identified the problem. We're gonna get it fixed for him and we move ahead."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.