The Wild Visit the Islanders in their brand new builidng, UBS Arena. It will be the second meeting of the Wild and Islanders this season, with the Wild winning in St. Paul 5-2 back in November.
The Islanders have quite a few Minnesota and Wild connections and Zach Parise has now added to the story sideline. Parise has not fared very well in the offensive production category but did score goals in consecutive games and has two goals and assist in the last three brining hisbseason total to three goals and nine assists in 36 games.
Friday the Wild overcame a poor first period in Madison Square Garden to spoil Henrik Lunqvist's night with a 3-2 come from behind victory. Kevin Fiala, Mats Zuccarello each scored in the second period to knot the game at two and in the process, extend their personal 10 game point streaks.
Kirill Kaprizov assisted on Zuccarello's goal and he too now has a 10 game streak of his own. The Wild team record is 12 games.
Cam Talbot slammed the door on the Rangers after yielding the two first period goals. It appears the Kahkonen will get the start for the Wild as they look to ease Talbot back into his starting role.
If their has been one area of concern for the Wild this season it is with the average play of mainly Talbot in the Wild net. The emergence of Kaapo Kahkonen and his recent stellar play should be the fire under Cam to push him to perform like he did last season in a similar spot.
Kahkonen also gives the Wild a far better one tow option that now can be counted on with extreme confidence.
Marcus Foligno will miss tonight's game with an upper body injury, that he suffered last game when he raced to break up a Rangers scoring opportunity and went heavily into the boards. Both Jon Merrill and Nico Sturm are still out in Covid-19 protocol. Brandon Duhaime will most likely replace Folignobon the line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Kyle Rau will dress and play on the fourth line with Victor Rask and Connor Dewar.
For the Islanders they are working to claw themselves back into the playoff picture after a rough start to thevseason that had them play their first 13 games on the road. Throw in numerous postponements much like the Wild and they have only played 36 games to date. The two time Eastern Conference runner up has won seven of their last 10 and are looking to make their move up the ladder an into playoff contention.
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!