Wild Game Day number 11 Wild Record (4-4-2 10 pts) Home Record (2-2-1)
Opponent: Montreal Canadiens (4-7-1 9 pts) Road Record (2-5-0)
Site: Xcel Energy Center, St Paul, Minnesota
Time: 7:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last season results: 12/22 Wild 4 @ Canadiens 2 1/17 Canadiens 1 @ Wild 7
The home stand continues tonight for the Wild as they play host to the Canadiens in hopes of getting back into the win column and back over the .500 mark. Montreal comes in having won their last two and winners of three of their last four, following their dreadful eight game losing streak.
The Canadiens appear to have found their offense scoring 18 goals in their most recent three wins, as compared to the 10 goals they scored in their nine losses. On Monday, the Canadiens lit up the Senators scoring four first period goals en route to an 8-3 win in Ottawa. That win came on the heels of their 5-4 win over the Rangers on Saturday night.
Carey Price, the Canadiens all World goalie, has been anything but that this season sporting a 3-6-1 record, with a 3.64 GAA, and a .883 save percentage. Very uncharacteristic numbers from arguably the NHL's best netminder for sure.
Devan Dubnyk, the Wild goaltender, has had himself a rough goof it through the first month of the season as well, but is coming off of his best game of the young season, a 2-1 win Saturday night over the Penguins.
The Wild took both meetings with the Canadiens last season including a dominating 7-1 in St. Paul in mid January. Overall the Wild have won the last five games the clubs have played, and six of eight over the last four seasons, including all four played at home over that span.
Tonight is a tale of two teams working toward rectifying disappointing Octobers. Both team's all star goalies are looking to get things turned around individually, which should translate into a rapid climb up the standings.
A major concern for the Wild of late has been the powerplay which is mired in an 0 for 18 slump. Bruce Boudreau wants his team to generate shots and crash the net, but that has been lacking a the Wild have been content passing the puck around the perimeter in search of the perfect scoring opportunity. Or worse when they do shoot the puck it is far too often either off target or worse and unscreened shot that is swallowed up by the opposing goalie.
According to the Athletic's, Michael Russo, the Wild PP units will be tweaked tonight and will look like this: 1st unit: Niederreter Koivu Granlund Suter Spurgeon 2nd Unit: Zucker Staal Stewart Reilly Dumba
The fact that Dumba is on the 2nd PP unit says that he will be in the lineup, after being benched for much of the third period on Tuesday night following his miscue. It is obvious that Boudreau sent a loud and clear message to Dumba that his play must improve.
Matt Dumba is a professional and his time is now to show that he can take this latest bout with adversity and use it to strengthen his approach and allow him to tap into the huge potential that made him a top ten draft pick and caused the Wild to make roster decisions to hold onto the 23 year old fourth year defenseman.
The Wild lineup will be the same as Tuesday night, meaning that Kyle Quincey will once again be a healthy scratch as Gustav Olofsson earned himself another game following his solid effort Tuesday against the Jets.
Wild Projected Lines: Granlund Koivu Zucker Niederreiter Staal Kunin Foligno Eriksson Ek Stewart Ennis Cullen Winnik
Suter Spurgeon Brodin Reilly Olofsson Dumba
Dubnyk Stalock
Having the same lineup on consecutive nights is something that Bruce Boudreau and his staff have not had the luxury of much this season and tonight will mark the first time that the team will ice the same 12 forwards in back to back games this season.
The Wild need a win tonight as they want to position themselves for an opportunity to complete this six game home stand (2-2-0 through the first 4 games) with a winning record. They will host Central Division foe and Wild nemesis, the Blackhawks on Saturday night before hitting the road again. But first things first, the Wild must bring a better effort tonight from start to finish against the Canadiens.
There is no sympathy and there are no excuses in the NHL as every team faces the same challenges during a long 82 game schedule. Injuries, schedule quirks, travel, etc it is all relative and all part of the process.
October is in the books for the Wild and the calendar page has turned to November. The .500 October is in the past and the lessons learned will shape the team as they move forward into a much busier November where they will play 15 times compared to the 10 games they played last month.
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!
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