Wild Game Day number 78 Wild Record (43-24-10 96 pts) Road Record (17-18-2)
Opponent: Dallas Stars (39-31-8 86 pts) Home Record (25-12-3)
Site: American Airlines Arena, Dallas, TX
Time: 7:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last Season Result: 10/29 Stars 0 @ Wild 4 11/21 Wild 2 @ Stars 3 (OT) 1/14 Wild 5 @ Stars 4 1/24 Wild 3 @ Stars 2 (SO) 2/16 Stars 1 @ Wild 3
Last Result: 12/27 Stars 2 @ Wild 4 2/3 Wild 1 @ Stars 6 3/29 Stars 2 @ Wild 5
After Thursday's 5-2 win at home, the Wild travel to Dallas to complete the home and home set with the Stars tonight. Thursday's game ended with some nastiness precipitated by Dallas' Antoine Roussel who chirped Devan Dubnyk late in the game and delivered some late cheap shots to Daniel Winnik.
Winnik tried to get at Roussel, but in typical Roussel fashion he turtled which of course incensed both Winnik and Dubnyk. For sure this is a storyline heading into tonight's game, but the Wild must be careful not to let one player get them off their game.
Now if the Wild channel that energy that they have pent up against Roussel, and use it to play the game the way they know that they can. This is a good test heading into the playoffs as well. The game within the game is magnified even more come playoff time, so if the Wild can use the Roussel antics as a rallying point to not get them out of their game, but to challenge them to put Roussel's team out of their misery.
Dallas is essentially out of the playoffs as we discussed heading into Thursday's game, the Stars really needed to win all of their remaining games if they had any chance of making the dance and even then it was no guarantee. A Wild win tonight will officially put the Stars playoff chances to rest once and for all.
On Thursday the Stars played an inspired game taking away the Wild time and space early. The turning point was the late first period shorthanded goal by Mikael Granlund during a Dallas 4-minute powerplay.
That goal allowed the Wild to head to the room after the first period tied at 1 after being outplayed for the good majority of the 1st.
Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and Alex Radulov are absolutely a dominant NHL line and one of the very best the league has to offer. The problem for Dallas and head coach Ken Hitchcock is that he gets very little if any production from his supporting cast. Combine that with suspect goaltending and the Stars have found themselves on the outside looking in at the playoffs once again.
Hitchcock has experimented with breaking up his top line but that has yielded nothing ultimately forcing his hand to keep that trio together to give his squad their best shot at winning.
The fact is the Stars have won a lot of games with this formula and that line can absolutely carry the team to wins especially at home. Expect the Wild to have their hands full with these three, along with John Klingberg who moves the puck and joins the rush as well as anyone.
Gustav Olofsson left Thursday's game with an upper body injury. Seeler will be back in the Wild lineup tonight, but to be honest even if Olofsson was healthy Seeler would have been in for the Roussel factor alone.
A lot has been made about the recent production slump of Granlund, and that he is now coming out of that with five points in the last four Wild games. That is more like the media just reading the box scores rather than watching the play on the ice.
If we look at the first of Granlund's four points in the past two games, which was his sparkling assist on the give and go with Eric Staal with just over 3 minutes to play in Nashville, Tuesday night. That was the only time that Granlund and Staal played together at even strength.
There is no coincidence that when #64 plays regularly with #12 that offense is generated. They need to play together and when they do those two top talents change the complexion of the Wild offensively.
Unlike Ken Hitchcock's problem, Bruce Boudreau does get production from up and down his lineup, so stacking up the top line for the Wild actually makes them much tougher to game plan against, creating tougher line matching scenarios for opposing coaches.
Jordan Greenway has looked overmatched for much of his first two NHL games, focusing mainly on his defensive zone coverage. He just seems to be overthinking the game rather than just playing hockey like he has all his life. The main issue that is very noticeable in his game is his lack of foot movement almost always starting from a complete stop rather than reading the play and reacting accordingly.
Greenway displayed his dangerous release and lethal shot in the third period Thursday when he ripped a shot by Kari Lehtonen, ringing it off the pipe, coming ever so close to his first National Hockey League Goal. It would be nice to see him get that first one to allow him to settle in and relax a little to play his game. It will come for sure for the kid, and I would expect him to stay in the lineup again tonight to give him another opportunity against a familiar opponent and of course for his size and presence.
Hitchcock has said that his goal is to win the Stars final four games and he will play Seguin 25 minutes if he to. This is not a game for the Wild to overlook, and if they don't play a playoff style game tonight the result will not be a good one.
Wild projected lines: Zucker-Staal-Niederreiter Granlund-Koivu-Parise Greenway-Cullen-Coyle Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Winnik
Suter-Dumba Brodin-Murphy Seeler-Prosser
Dubnyk
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