Tyler Graovac's trip into the nation's capital was relatively easy. For his equipment, it was a little more complicated.
With a fierce winter storm bearing down on the East Coast, the Wild summoned Graovac to Washington to take the place of Martin Hanzal, who is back in the Twin Cities dealing with an illness. Graovac, who helped the Iowa Wild to a two-game sweep of the Texas Stars over the weekend, was able to fly into D.C. direct from Austin, Texas, arriving around 8:30 on Monday night.
His equipment, however, had already returned to Des Moines.
Wild team operations manager Andrew Heydt didn't want to chance sending the bag via FedEx, in case the storm grounded all flights to the area. So he enlisted the services of Iowa assistant equipment manager Ian Fisher to fly commercially with the bag.
After a connecting flight to Minneapolis, Fisher and Graovac's equipment was headed for Washington. Originally scheduled to arrive at Ronald Reagan International on the banks of the Potomac River, the flight was re-routed to Dulles, a 30-minute drive (under normal conditions) south of the city in northern Virginia.
The plane touched down, and Fisher waited for the equipment before embarking on a slow ride into Washington. He finally arrived with the bag around 3:30 a.m. local time.
Fisher was headed back to Des Moines on Tuesday, but with airports up and down the East Coast dealing with closures and cancellations, his flight back to the Twin Cities had already been delayed several hours.
"I don't deal with the equipment, which I'm thankful for," Graovac said with a smile. "Good thing I didn't have to pick it up. But I am thankful for the guys to take care of that for me."
Graovac will get an opportunity to help the Wild on Tuesday against one of the NHL's top teams, the Washington Capitals, who are tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins for the most points in the League.
Still just 23 years old, Graovac said he's excited to hit the ice in a game of this magnitude and play against a guy like Alex Ovechkin, who he said he's grown up watching play.
"It's my first time here in Washington, first time at this rink, first time playing this team. I'm looking for the challenge," Graovac said. "This is what the playoffs are going to be like. This is a Stanley Cup-type game tonight. I'm really looking forward to being a part of it."
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Nino Niederreiter - Eric Staal - Charlie Coyle
Mikael Granlund - Mikko Koivu - Jason Zucker
Zach Parise - Erik Haula - Jason Pominville
Chris Stewart - Tyler Graovac - Ryan White
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Matt Dumba
Marco Scandella - Nate Prosser
Devan Dubnyk
Darcy Kuemper
CAPITALS
Alex Ovechkin - Nicklas Backstrom - T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Justin Williams
Brett Connolly - Lars Eller - Jakub Vrana
Daniel Winnik - Jay Beagle - Tom Wilson
Karl Alzner - John Carlson
Dmitri Orlov - Matt Niskanen
Brooks Orpik - Nate Schmidt
Braden Holtby
Philipp Grubauer
