Game Preview 66: Wild vs Coyotes

ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Wild (31-27-7) host the Arizona Coyotes (26-34-5) tonight for their first of three games this week. 

Marcus Johansson will return to the lineup tonight for the Wild with Adam Beckman drawing out of the lineup. Marcus Foligno was not on the ice for morning skate but is expected to play tonight. 

Marc-Andre Fleury is 7-2-0 in his last 11 games played with a 2.23 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage. He will start tonight for the Wild. 

Karel Vejmelka will start for the Coyotes. Vejmelka is 3-2-0 with a 3.60 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage in five career games played against the Wild.

Marat Khusnutdinov was on the ice again for the Wild but will not play tonight. Yesterday Wild head coach John Hynes said Khusnutdinov would go through all the normal game-day activities as if he was playing just to try and get him acclimated. 

But Khusnutdinov won't go on the ice for pre-game warmups. He wants his first time on the ice for pre-game warmups to be his first game so he can have a nice rookie lap. 

The plan for Khusnutdinov is to continue to get him comfortable before playing him. He will likely play this week though. 

Kaprizov - Eriksson Ek - Boldy

Zuccarello - Rossi - Hartman

Johansson - Gaudreau - Foligno

Shaw - Lucchini - Lettieri

Defense:

Middleton - Faber

Brodin - Bogosian

Merrill - Chisholm

Projected Starter: Fleury

Scratched: D Goligoski, D Mermis, & F Khusnutdinov 

Injured: D Spurgeon

Clayton Keller - Barrett Hayton - Nick Schmaltz

Matias Maccelli - Nick Bjugstad - Alex Kerfoot

Lawson Crouse - Logan Cooley - Dylan Guenther

Michael Carcone - Jack McBain - Liam O'Brien

Defense:

JJ Moser - Sean Durzi

Juuso Valimaki - Michael Kesselring 

Victor Soderstrom - Josh Brown

Projected Starter: Karel Vejmelka

Scratched: F John Leonard

Injured: F Travis Boyd D Travis Dermott

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