Wild Game Day number 13
Opponent: Tampa Bay Lightning (7-6-2 16 pts) Site: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minnesota Time: 7:00PM CT TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last Season Results: 10/25 Lightning 2 @ Wild 7 11/22 Wild 1 @ Lightning 2
Tonight the Wild catch another team completing a 4 Game road trip in St. Paul. This time it is last year's Eastern Conference champions the Tampa BayLightning. The Lightning are 2 and 1 so far on this trip coming off their 4-1 win in Buffalo Thursday night.
Last season Wild and Lightning split the two games between them with each team winning on home ice. The Wild had a fairly easy time of it in St. Paul chasing Tampa goaltender Evgeny Nabokov in the first period after scoring 4 goals on just 8 shots. Ben Bishop did not fare much better as he yielded 3 more Wild goals as the Wild coasted to a 7-2 victory. The second match up was much more representative of these two teams with Tampa winning in Tampa 2 to 1 a month later.
The Lightning are starting to heat up after a somewhat slow start, especially for what was their top line a year ago. The triplets as they are known, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palt, and Nikita Kucherov got off to slow starts but have looked more like they did last year the last couple of weeks. Steven Stamkos leads the way with 7 goals and is one of the games most dangerous goal scorers. He is in a contract year and their is much speculation as to if he will stay in Tampa long term or not.
Victor Hedman is establishing himself as a perennial Norris Trophy candidate as the league's best defenseman. He logs all the big minutes and is tough to play against in his own zone due to his size and skating ability, and is very dangerous offensively as well.
The Wild will be without Zach Parise tonight, and that means Charlie Coyle will move to the first line to play the right side with Jason Pominville moving to the left wing and Mikael Granlund in the middle. This will be a good test to see how the lineup responds without it's on ice leader. Now would be a great time for Pominville to get it going offensively.
The Wild have recalled Christoph Bertschy from Iowa. Bertschy, the Wild's 6th round draft choice in 2012, has 2 goals and 6 points in 12 games this season in Iowa. The rookie from Fribiurg, Switzerland played the past four seasons with Bern of the Swiss league scoring 14 goals and 30 points last season.
Devan Dubnyk is expected to get the call in net and Ben Bishop most likely to be opposite him in the Lightning crease. The Wild look to halt their 2 Game skid with a victory on home ice. They are not playing all that poorly, but the attention to detail is lacking in the last several games which has led a couple Ls in the standings.
Let's Play Hockey!