WildHBcommunity: Minnesota Wild Finish Home & Home In Dallas Tonight
Dallas Stars Looking to get back on Track on Home Ice
The Dallas Stars 21 - 19 - 8 (50 points) find themselves in deep slump losing nine of their last ten games including an overtime loss 3-2 in Minnesota to the Wild on Saturday in overtime. The Minnesota Wild 26 - 19 - 5 (57 points) on paper at least looks like an easy target for an opponent looking to get back on track. The Wild has found ways to overcome significant injuries to key veteran contributors because of the depth of young players at their disposal.
The Stars are 10 - 8 – 5 on their home ice this season, they are in desperate need of two points tonight as they have fallen nine points behind Minnesota and Vancouver in the Western Conference standings. The Stars put 35 shots on the Wild’s rookie netminder Darcy Kuemper on Saturday night to which he stopped 33 of them earning the overtime win. The Stars are 4-12 (33.3 percent) on the power play over the last four games and 5-8-5 vs. the Central Division.
Minnesota Wild Thriving in Adversity
It seems like there exist no more injury prone tough luck franchise than the Minnesota Wild in the entire NHL. When Zach Parise took a Alex Steen bomb off of his foot at the end of November, and then returned just 2 games later a sigh of relief went out all over the State of Hockey. Then the Wild collapsed nearly on cue in December. Parise was then shutdown with an aggravation of the foot injury which opened the injury floodgates. Next was Josh Harding who originally took a planned week off to adjust his treatment and medication for Multiple Sclerosis but has since been feeling ill and been completely out of the lineup for a month. Harding is a tough situation to complete diagnose as his illness is nearly unprecedented for an NHL player let alone goaltender. Harding was playing so well to begin this season carry the Wild to their best two months in franchise history. Harding will hopefully find relief from his illness and be in the lineup soon but until then the team has received a pleasant surprise with the outstanding play of 23 year old Darcy Kuemper.
Tonight it will again be a next man up mentality for this fresh faced Wild squad in Dallas. The Hero the past two games has been Elk River native Nate Prosser who lit the lamp in back to back games to lift the team to victory playing in an extended role for the injured Jared Spurgeon. Tonight I believe the Mikael Granlund lead line of Jason Pominville and Jason Zucker is the line that will carry the squad to victory.
Just My Take, Tony Dean
Follow Me on Twitter @TonyDean1204
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