Wild Game Day number 80 Wild Record (44-25-10 98 pts) Road Record (17-19-2)
Opponent: Anaheim Ducks (41-25-13 95 pts) Home Record (24-10-5)
Site: Honda Center, Anaheim, CA
Time: 9:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last season results: 1/8 Wild 2 @ Ducks 1 1/21 Ducks 3 @ Wild 5 2/14 Ducks 1 @ Wild 0
Last Result: 12/8 Wild 3 @ Ducks 2 (OT) 2/17 Ducks 3 @ Wild 2 (SO)
The final road trip of the regular season begins tonight as the Wild take on the Ducks in Anaheim. In the two previous meetings this season the visitors have skated off with a 3-2 victory each courtesy of extra time, with the Wild winning in OT, and the Ducks in a shootout.
Anaheim is still battling to secure a playoff berth as they currently hold the top wildcard position a point back of Los Angeles for third in the Pacific and 2 points up on Colorado and 3 points clear of the St. Louis who currently sit on the outside looking in.
For the Wild of course, they have secured their post season berth, but still must keep the level of play up as they look to prepare for the playoffs. They are almost assured to finish third in the Central with a first round opponent of Winnipeg, but that has not been locked in officially.
It was confirmed yesterday that the Ducks will be without defenseman, Cam Fowler for 2-6 weeks with a shoulder injury, while goaltender John Gibson is day to day with an upper body injury suffered in Sunday's overtime win against Colorado.
The Wild have their own injury issues with Ryan Suter now gone for the season and still without Suter's defensive partner Jared Spurgeon along with Gustav Olofsson. Carson Soucy stepped right in Monday night and looked very poised for a rookie playing in his very first NHL game.
These next three games are great for Soucy and fellow rookie defenseman, Nick Seeler to gain greater experience against playoff caliber opponents in their buildings.
Devan Dubnyk will get the call for the Wild in net tonight with Alex Stalock slated to start tomorrow in Los Angeles. Dubnyk is coming off his 5th shutout of the season Monday with the 3-0 win over Edmonton.
I have been lax in my Zach Parise accolades and it should not be overlooked what he is doing. Five goals in the last three games, 12 goals in the last 16 and 15 goals through 40 games is a 30 goal pace for the season. Parise has been through a lot with all of the injuries the last few seasons and missing the entire first half of this year. He is skating like the Zach of old and his energy has never been better. The fact that Parise missed 39 games may again work in the Wild favor as he is a much healthier player when they need him most. Parise is a heart and soul player and his resurgence to the form is a huge boost heading into the postseason.
The Wild don't have a whole lot of extra healthy bodies to allow much rest for the veterans but expect Jordan Greenway to be in the lineup in all three games would be my guess to give him as much NHL experience as possible. Their will be a rotation of one forward in and one out each game but just who that will be is a game time decision.
Wild projected lines: Zucker-Staal-Niederreiter Granlund-Koivu-Parise Greenway/Ennis-Cullen-Coyle Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Winnik
Seeler-Dumba Brodin-Murphy Soucy-Prosser
Dubnyk
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!
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