Wild claims winger Chris Porter off waivers from Flyers

Michael Raffl and Sean Couturier, both dealing with “upper-body injuries” were the only two players on the ice Thursday, as a scheduled practice was cancelled.

Instead, players did off-ice work at Skate Zone before busing to Newark for Friday night’s preseason finale against the Devils.

Counting those two cuts, the Flyers’ roster has been whittled down to 24 players, one shy of the limit they’re allotted for opening night. McDonald cleared on Thursday but Porter did not.

Faced with injuries to three forwards, the Wild made a roster move on Thursday by claiming left winger Chris Porter off waivers from the Philadelphia Flyers.

“You can’t make any commitments to anyone there’s no way of knowing what going to happen along the way and obviously when you commit to a one-way you think the guys going to be on your team”, Hextall said. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to keep a youngster in the pressbox.

After their respective skates, Couturier and Raffl were both upbeat. “I don’t know that either one will play (Friday)”, Hextall said. He will back up Steve Mason in the game but Mason will play the entire game in net.

“Yeah, I guess it’s hard, odd I guess”, Porter said. Mase came off a real good start on Monday night. For it to become a reality, I don’t think it’s sunk in and it might take a few time.

“I think the natural thing the last game or even two games is you look at the lineup and try to predict what’s coming”, said Hakstol. “We’ll kind of talk that through, see how we get through tomorrow”. It’s a regular road routine. “Whether he plays Friday, I don’t know”. “But again, we have tough decisions to make here so we’ll see”. We need to continue to bring all of the pieces of the puzzle together. We will have more as the story develops.

In terms of five-on-five play, the coach said that the team needs to sustain a more consistent level of execution. “Part of the good problem we have is we have depth”.

“If there’s eight guys and you’re the eighth guy, you’re still not playing, right?” He was what we thought he’d be.

Asked Wednesday if his decision about a last forward comes down to either keeping Laughton and making Lecavalier a frequent healthy scratch or simply sending Laughton back, Hakstrol said, “I think that’s narrowing it down a bit too much”. There is still work to be done, according to Hakstol, but he’s seeing progress. “I’ve said all along, I think he’s a good pro”. If it wouldn’t have been, we’d have tried. The people that are possible to go down, those guys have pushed us. But I think Scott’s at a point where that might not be the biggest consideration. “We have a ways to go, but a pretty good base so far on the PK”.