Minnesota Wild Reveal Bad News Injury Update on Jake Middleton

Minnesota Wild defenseman Jake Middleton is in the midst a career-best season, in 2024-25. Not only are the Wild 19-6-4, but through 29 games played, Jake’s 5 goals are only two shy of his career high of 7, which came over the course of 80 games played last season.

Middleton’s 13 points this season are only one shy of his total from 2021-22 and two shy of the 15 points he gained all of 2022-23. The 29-year-old Canadian has also piled up a +22 point differential, when on the ice, easily the best of his career.

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Unfortunately, all of that changed rather quickly on Thursday night, when Middleton used his wrist to block a point shot from Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard. In the video below, you can see Middleton look down at his wrist/hand right, immediately when the puck ricochets away, and he knows something is wrong.

Jake Middleton is going on Minnesota Wild Long-Term Injured Reserve

Shortly after, the Wild’s top-4 blossoming defenseman skated to the bench, and never returned. On Friday, we got the bad news that Jake Middleton’s injury requires surgery, and a stint on Long-Term Injured Reserve, which means he must miss at least 10 games and 24 total calendar days.

Here is Jake Middleton’s injury. His night ended 37 seconds into his first shift. Struck on hand by one of the NHL’s hardest shooters pic.twitter.com/CmLT5RdQQ3

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) December 13, 2024

The #mnwild has placed defenseman Jake Middleton on Long-Term Injured Reserve.

— Minnesota Wild PR (@mnwildPR) December 13, 2024

This is just the latest blow the Minnesota Wild have taken, on the injury front. They’ve lost some of their best talents for large stretches of the 2024-25 season, including Jared Spurgeon early on, then forward staples like Mats Zuccarello and Joel Eriksson Ek, more recently.

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Thursday, all three of those guys were back in the lineup, but the defense core was still missing Jonas Brodin. And now, that same group has lost Jake Middleton, just a quarter of the way through what was looking like by far the best season in his 6+ year NHL career.