Wild Game Day number 11 Wild Record (6-3-1 13 pts) Road Record (2-2-1)
Opponent: Colorado Avalanche (4-5-0 8 pts) Home Record (1-2-0)
Site: Pepsi Center, Denver, CO
Time: 2:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last Season Results: 10/8 Wild 5 @ Avalanche 4 12/5 Avalanche 0 @ Wild 3 12/7 Wild 1 @ Avalanche 2 (OT) 3/1 Avalanche 3 @ Wild 6 3/26 Wild 4 @ Avalanche 0
The Wild take on the Avalanche this afternoon at the Pepsi Center in a Central Division matinee. Minnesota has owned the series with Colorado the last two seasons. Since the two met in the opening round of the 2014 Playoffs, in which the Wild won on Nino Niederreiter's OT goal, Minnesota has gone 8-1-1 vs. Colorado. The Wild are 4-0-1 in Denver over that stretch with two shutouts. In the ten games the Wild have five shutouts.
That all occurred with different coaches behind each of the respective benches though. Jared Bednar is at the helm for Colorado and of course Bruce Boudreau now behind the Wild bench.
Colorado has dropped four of their last five after a three and one start to the season. There is an adjustment period with any new coach, but that is magnified a bit more with Avalanche with the sudden resignation of former coach Patrick Roy just six weeks before the opening of training camp. Bednar is a very qualified coach and in the long run will be a very good NHL coach, but it will not be without some growing pains.
The Avalanche have some very high end talent and when they get good goaltending they can beat anyone. Bednar switched things up a bit last game on his top line moving Matt Duchene to the wing with Nathan McKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.
Boudreau also is tinkering with his top line moving Jason Zucker up to play with Eric Staal and Charlie Coyle. Line juggling will be a constant for the Wild, just by the nature of their makeup and balanced scoring. They are getting production up and down the lineup which needs to continue for them to keep climbing the NHL standings.
Zach Parise, who ignited with the Wild comeback win (hattrick) in last season's opener in Denver, will miss today's game along with Erik Haula, Zac Dalpe and Marco Scandella. Colorado enters the game with a full healthy lineup.
The goaltending matchup will be Semyon Varlamov for Colorado and Devan Dubnyk, who had his 3 game shutout streak snapped Tuesday at home against Buffalo in the Wild's 2-1 loss.
Minnesota has had three days of practice. It's Gameday today, time to put that work to the test. Colorado can be a very tough place to play with the altitude playing a factor with players wind. The Avalanche are no easy team to play against as they have both speed and skill. For the Wild to be successful today, they must generate more quality scoring chances than they have in their last couple games. They will need to be more physical and generate more shots that get through to the net.
Let's Go Crazy!
Let's Go Wild!
Let's Play Hockey!