Game 8: Wild vs. Capitals Game Preview

After yet another sloppy game yesterday, the Wild are back at it tonight in Washington to face the 2-3-1 Capitals. 

Back-to-backs tend to be tough considering playing the night before plus traveling, but this might help the Wild. Regardless of their 3-3-1 start to the season, the Wild have struggled to play defensively at a high level and have allowed the second highest goals against in the NHL.

In the last four games, the Wild have allowed 22 goals against which is the highest in the NHL but they have also scored 16 goals which is one goal away from the NHL lead in that span. 

The Capitals have played six games this year and rank 31st in the league in goals for, only trailing the San Jose Sharks for last in the NHL. They also rank tied for seventh in goals allowed with the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

Tonight is a quick turn around from yesterday's 6-2 loss to the Flyers and a chance to easily flush it and forget about the struggles. But the Wild need to tighten up defensively in order to turn this slow start around. 

Marc-Andre Fleury will start tonight against the former Wild goaltender, Darcy Kuemper. The Wild didn't have a morning skate this morning so the lines aren't 100% known but here are the projected lines. But we do know that Daemon Hunt will make his NHL debut tonight with Jujhar Khaira scratched, according to Michael Russo on twitter.

Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello

Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Maroon

Foligno-Rossi-Lettieri

Duhaime-Dewar-

Defense pairs:

Brodin-Faber

Middleton-Addison

Merrill-Mermis

Hunt

Ovechkin-Strome-Wilson 

Milano-Kuznetsov-Oshie 

McMichael-Backstrom-Mantha 

Malenstyn-Protas-Phillips 

Defense pairs:

Fehervary-Carlson 

Sandin-Van Riemsdyk

Alexeyev-Jensen