At this point, it’s almost easier for Wild coach Mike Yeo to rattle off the list of forwards not at his disposal – Devin Setoguchi, Guillaume Latendresse, probably Mikko Koivu and possibly Pierre-Marc Bouchard – than it is for him to combine players who know one another and work well together.

The Wild went through it with their defensemen, then their goaltenders, earlier this season, and now it seems their forwards’ time has come to deal with a rash of injuries.

Yet, when it might be reasonable for him to shrug off any losses on a lack of scoring punch, Yeo is trusting that he’s done enough work instilling his system that it will succeed, no matter which players the Wild have on the ice to execute it.

“Our identity’s not going to change as to who we are,” Yeo said. “Certainly, we’re going to be missing some skill, but we have to go out and do the same things that make us successful as a hockey team, and I believe we’re capable of that. Because of the consistency in our game, we have a good understanding of what our identity is. That makes it easier to have these interchangeable parts.”

It probably doesn’t hurt that the Wild have so many players on their roster right now who had played for Yeo in the minors.

The Wild called up Fridley native Jarod Palmer on Friday, putting him in line for his NHL debut and moving Latendresse to injured reserve. Palmer, left wing Casey Wellman and center Warren Peters all played for Yeo in Houston last season, so they are familiar with their roles in his puck-pressure system, even if they haven’t seen much time in the NHL this year.

“There shouldn’t be too much of a learning curve for a line to get together, because they should be doing the same things on that line that they were doing on another line,” Yeo said.

Zanon dealing with scratch: When Yeo decided to scratch defenseman Greg Zanon on Wednesday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, he made sure to tell the veteran before the team warmed up so he would have more time to process the news.

It’s not hard to figure out why the move might come as a surprise; Zanon had missed just one game the past three seasons, and he had yet to be a healthy scratch this season. But with Clayton Stoner playing well, Yeo decided not to move him out of the lineup.

“A veteran guy, I think you have to handle that a little bit different,” Yeo said. “He’s usually one of the first ones to the rink. I would have liked to have done it in the morning, but he wasn’t there in the morning. It’s a tough thing. He’s going to get back in; he’s a good defenseman for us.”

Zanon was a healthy scratch several times during his first two seasons in the league with Nashville. He said the news was hard to take, but “you’ve got to try and be as positive as you can be.”

“Any time you’re a healthy scratch, you’re surprised. Coming back from (a groin) injury, I thought I was playing pretty well,” he said. “But it’s the coaching staff’s decision, and you stand by that.”

Follow Ben Goessling at twitter.com/BenGoesslingPP.