Wild will be well represented at World Championships

There's no doubt that Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter would much rather be locked into a Second Round Stanley Cup Playoff series with the Nashville Predators.
Instead, the two are across the pond representing their nations at the
World Championships
, which begin Friday in Copenhagen and Herning, Denmark.
Granlund, representing Finland, will be playing in his fourth World Championships and is coming off his best trip there, where he scored four goals and had eight assists and was a plus-6 in 10 games in 2015-16.

Overall, Granlund has played in 23 games at the World Championships in his career, scoring seven goals and adding 17 assists. He is a plus-10 in those contests. Selected as captain, it's the first time he will wear the 'C' for Team Finland at the World Championships.
Granlund's international history includes one trip to the Olympics, as well as playing for Finland in the World Cup of Hockey and both the World Junior Championships and the World Junior Under-18 tournament.
Granlund scored 21 goals and had 67 points in 77 games for the Wild this season, then had one goal and three points in five postseason games.
Finland is with Canada and the United States, among others, in Group B.
For Niederreiter, it will be his third trip to the World Championships for Switzerland. He has been outstanding in each of his first turns there, scoring five goals and eight points in 10 games in 2012-13 and adding three goals and six points in seven games during his last trip in 2015-16.
Niederreiter has represented Switzerland at one Olympics and in the World Junior Under-18 tournament and was a member of Team Europe at the World Cup of Hockey in 2016.
Niederreiter tallied 18 goals and 32 points in an injury-marred 2017-18 campaign that limited him to just 63 games.
Switzerland is in Group A at the tournament.
But the Wild representation at the World Championships doesn't end there, as prospect Kirill Kaprizov will represent Russia in Group A competition.
Kaprizov will be participating in his first World Championships after playing for Russia in a number of international competitions the past couple of years.
Kaprizov was a member of the gold-medal winning Russian team at the Olympics in February, scoring five goals and nine points in six games, including the gold-winning goal, in PyeongChang, South Korea.
He captained the Russians at the World Junior Championships in last season, scoring nine goals and 12 points in seven games, leading the Russia to the bronze medal.
Kaprizov, who turned 21 years old last week, also earned a bronze medal at the World Junior tournament in 2016 and a silver medal at the World Under-18 tournament in 2015.
A fifth-round pick of the Wild in 2015, Kaprizov scored 15 goals and 40 points in 46 games with CSKA Moskva in the Kontinental Hockey League this season.
Related:
- Granlund, Niederreiter to play at World Championships