Game Preview: Wild vs Panthers

The Minnesota Wild (18-21-5) started this pivotal three-game road trip with a 7-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday. The Wild continue their trip tonight versus the Florida Panthers (27-13-4) before ending the trip against the Carolina Hurricanes Sunday afternoon.

The Wild, who have lost nine of their past 11 and sit 27th in the league, are nine points behind the L.A. Kings in the second wild-card spot. While Wild general manager Bill Guerin is confident his team can “compete for a playoff spot,” time is running out as they continue to get further behind in the standings. 

This is a challenging road trip for the Wild, who received news yesterday that their captain and best all-around defenseman in Jared Spurgeon is out for the remainder of the 2023-24 season. 

The Wild have two tough assignments in front of them. The Panthers are 9-1-2 in their past 12 contests, but have lost straight games (0-1-2) after winning nine games in a row. Then, on Sunday afternoon, they face the Hurricanes — who are 10-2-4 in their past 16 games.

Here's what you need to know about tonight's game:

• This is the final meeting this season between the Wild and Panthers. The Wild shutout the Panthers 2-0 on Oct. 12 in Minnesota's home opener.

• Freddy Gaudreau, who played only 9:02 last night, has an upper-body injury and may not be available to play tonight. If he indeed is out, Adam Raska will likely draw into the lineup and play his fourth NHL game this season.

• Marc-Andre Fleury starts in goal after Filip Gustavsson allowed seven goals on 38 shots in the Wild's loss to the Lightning last night. This is Fleury's first start since he passed Patrick Roy for second all-time in regular-season victories in the Wild's 5-0 win over the New York Islanders in St. Paul on Monday. In January so far, Fleury is 2-3-1 with a .906 save percentage and one shutout.

• The Panthers will be without one of their top forwards in Aleksander Barkov (lower-body injury), who has 11 goals and 46 points in 40 games this season. Nick Cousins (upper-body injury) remains on injured reserve.

• Sam Reinhart, a pending unrestricted free agent, is the Panthers player to watch. The 28-year-old forward is on an eight-game goal streak and has 16 goals over his past 14 contests. He has 33 goals in 44 games (a 62-goal pace) — which is behind only Auston Matthews' 37.

Kaprizov — Rossi — Zuccarello

Johansson — Eriksson Ek — Boldy

Foligno — Hartman — Maroon

Duhaime — Dewar — Raska

Defensive pairs:

Middleton — Faber

Brodin — Bogosian

Goligoski — Mermis

Projected starter: Fleury

Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk

Evan Rodrigues — Kevin Stenlund — Ryan Lomberg

Jonah Gadjovich — Steven Lorentz — William Lockwood

Defensive pairs:

Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad 

Niko Mikkola — Brandon Montour

Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Dmitry Kulikov

Projected starter: Sergei Bobrovsky