ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Kirill Kaprizov quickly became close friends with Mats Zuccarello when he joined the Minnesota Wild, a pair of wings with complementary styles who frequently skated together on the first line and forged an even stronger connection off the ice.
Now that the mentor has departed, it's time this season for the protégé to thrive on his own.
“For me, it’s sad a little bit. We’re good friends, and everyone knows that,” said Kaprizov, who had 45 goals last season to help the Wild reach the second round of the NHL playoffs for the first time since 2015. “It’s a lot of business, and a lot of times it happens. I just want to talk with him in the future and stay good friends.”
Zuccarello left as a free agent for the Los Angeles Kings, leaving a void behind him as a playmaking right wing and a trusted and buoyant voice in the locker room. But neither Kaprizov nor the Wild have any doubt that he's going to be just fine, entering his seventh season in the league.
“He was an awesome teammate, but at the end of the day it was time to move on, and I think that’s part of the job," defenseman Brock Faber said. “Kirill’s a superstar for a reason. Obviously his game might need to change a little bit. He’s capable of playing just about any way. He’s that good.”
Kaprizov, who's 10 years younger than Zuccarello, came to Minnesota during the pandemic and spoke little English. Zuccarello, a native of Norway who'd spent eight-plus seasons with the New York Rangers before joining the Wild in 2019, was a valuable resource as he learned a new city, a new culture and a new league.
But as Kaprizov was quick to note last week after the first practice of training camp, Zuccarello was far from the only teammate to look after him upon arrival from Russia. Ryan Hartman, who will likely center Kaprizov's line again this season, was one of the players who sent frequent text messages to check in.
“But I don't speak English,” Kaprizov said, smiling at the recollection. “I just use translator all the time.”
Defenseman Jared Spurgeon, the longest-tenured player on the team, regularly invited him to dinner with his family at their home, where Spurgeon's wife would cook borscht, a Russian soup staple. Zuccarello had Kaprizov over just as often, but his chemistry with the team stretched much further than one friend.
“We’re all going to miss Mats in a way. He’s such a special player, a special guy, and what he brought to the room was awesome. But Kirill’s a mature guy," left wing Marcus Foligno said. "Now he’s a man of his own and a big part of this franchise, and he understands the business is the business.”
Kaprizov could wind up with newcomer Maxim Shabanov on his line, a fellow Russian who signed with the Wild after one season with the New York Islanders and — like Kaprizov — time in the KHL before that.
“He's really good in skill and a good skater, smart, nice vision,” Kaprizov said. “I try help him how I can.”
See AP’s full NHL coverage here
FILE - Minnesota Wild left wing Kirill Kaprizov (97) skates during the first period of Game 4 of an NHL Stanley Cup hockey second-round playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche on May 11, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A ruling to halt deportations of people to countries other than their own threw a core immigration policy of the Trump administration into question, at least temporarily, and prompted a desperate appeal to the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The administration said the ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came Wednesday just minutes before midnight, forcing the cancellation of a flight with 70 people that was headed to three countries. It said justices needed to step in to “halt that chaos” and said the flight cancellation “required a new round of diplomatic engagement with each of the three countries,” which it did not name.
Plaintiffs for immigrants sought emergency relief from the appeals court Wednesday night, saying they heard from “multiple sources” that a deportation flight was scheduled the next day from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic.
Within hours of that request, the appeals court said it was clarifying a ruling against the policy last week and said a previous order allowing flights to continue while legal challenges play out was no longer in effect.
Administration officials reacted furiously. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the order “in the dark of night” robbed authorities of “an entirely legal and valuable tool to stem the tide of illegal immigration.”
The justices previously allowed the deportation flights to temporarily continue when the case came before them last year.
The vast majority of people deported to countries other than their own have been sent to Mexico, but under a series of often-secret agreements, the administration has deported thousands of others to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia to Guyana.
Some have found themselves in countries they’d never heard of before their arrivals and held there against their will. Some also face serious safety risks, and are left with little choice except to return to the home countries they were fleeing.
This month, lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said they were beaten and held at gunpoint in a hotel-turned-detention center by police who covered their heads with bags.
Trump's Republican administration has said that it sends people with final deportation orders to third countries when their homelands won’t accept them or they can’t be returned there. Those governments provide assurances that people won’t be persecuted or tortured, attorneys said.
James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 people in the U.S. illegally have been deported to third countries, calling those deportations “an essential public safety tool.”
The lower court order doesn't completely prohibit third-country deportations, but it requires the government give people a meaningful chance to object.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt that decision, arguing it would force unreasonable delays and the reworking of agreements with foreign countries.
“The order below would again obstruct DHS from efficiently removing aliens ... by inordinately delaying third-country removal for any alien who voices a fear of persecution or torture in that country, no matter how frivolous or belated the claim,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
The appeal comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.
Tim Sullivan contributed to this report from Minneapolis. Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
FILE - The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
