Here is everything you need to know before puck drop tonight.
ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Wild (20-10-4) are back in action tonight before the Christmas break to face the Chicago Blackhawks (12-20-2) on home ice.
The Wild have lost four straight games and are in their first slump of the season. But they will get two players back from injuries tonight.
Yakov Trenin is set to draw back into the lineup tonight for Brendan Gaunce. He missed the last five games with an upper-body injury.
Filip Gustavsson is also back for the Wild. He hasn't played in the last five games and has missed the last four with a lower-body injury.
Gustavsson is expected to start tonight against the Blackhawks. In other injury news, Joel Eriksson Ek skated this morning but won't play tonight. He has missed the last nine games with a lower-body injury but could play after the break.
The Blackhawks are coming off a loss and are 4-6-0 in their last ten games. This is the third meeting between the two teams. Chicago won the first game in overtime but Minnesota answered on Nov 29th with a win. They trailed that game 2-0 but won 3-2.
Here are tonight's projected lines (subject to change).
Wild's Projected Lines
Kirill Kaprizov - Marco Rossi - Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson - Freddy Gaudreau - Matt Boldy
Marcus Foligno - Marat Khusnutdinov - Ryan Hartman
Devin Shore - Ben Jones - Yakov Trenin
Defense:
Jonas Brodin - Brock Faber
Declan Chisholm - Jared Spurgeon
Jon Merrill - Zach Bogosian
Starting Goaltender: Filip Gustavsson
Scratched: Travis Dermott, Brendan Gaunce
Injured: Jakub Lauko (lower), Jake Middleton (upper), Joel Eriksson Ek (lower)
Blackhawks Projected Lines
Taylor Hall - Connor Bedard - Tyler Bertuzzi
Nick Foligno - Frank Nazar III - Ryan Donato
Teuvo Teravainen - Jason Dickinson - Ilya Mikheyev
Pat Maroon - Lukas Reichel - Joey Anderson
Defense:
Alex Vlasic - Connor Murphy
Nolan Allan - Seth Jones
Kevin Korchinski - TJ Brodie
Starting Goaltender: Arvid Soderblom
Scratched: Louis Crevier, Philipp Kurashev
Injured: Alec Martinez (upper), Craig Smith (lower), Laurent Brossoit (lower)
How to Watch & Listen: Tonight's game will be on Fanduel Sports Network North. Anthony LaPanta will be on the play-by-play with Wes Walz as the color analyst and Kevin Gorg a reporter. The radio broadcast will be on KFAN FM 100.3 with Joe O'Donnell behind the mic doing the play-by-play. Tom Reid as the color analyst and Kevin Falness as the Studio Host.
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