The Wild announced that Niklas Backstrom underwent successful sports hernia surgery on Thursday.
He is expected to be fully recovered in time for next season, but as a pending unrestricted free agent it isn't clear if he'll back with Minnesota or somewhere else when he returns to the ice.

Josh Harding was one of three finalists for the Masterton Trophy announced Tuesday.
Harding missed a large chunk of the season after he was disclosed he'd been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Perhaps most amazingly, Harding came off the bench and started all six games of the Wild's opening-round playoff series after Niklas Backstrom suffered a sports hernia during warmups before Game 1. While fellow finalists Sidney Crosby and Adam McQuaid have their own tales and justification for their nominations, it'll be tough to be Harding for this one.

GM Chuck Fletcher said that coach Mike Yeo will return to coach the Wild next season.
Fletcher is happy with the progress of the team. "I look at where we were a year ago to where we are now, and there's just been a dramatic improvement, a dramatic difference," Fletcher said. "Clearly we're on the right path. But you play a team like Chicago, you see where you have to get better. Their talent level, their depth is pretty impressive. Last year, we were Mikko Koivu and a bunch of prospects. Now, we've got four cornerstone pieces in Mikko and [Ryan] Suter and [Zach] Parise and [Jason] Pominville, and a lot of those prospects we talked about for a few years are now players. . . . We still have work to do, but we're trending the right way." Yeo will have a lot to work with next season so expect more from the Wild in 2013-14.