The Wild are set to wrap up their two-game road trip with a game against the Montreal Canadiens and will do so with Marc-Andre Fleury in net for what could be his last ever game there.
Minnesota is banged up, they lost Jared Spurgeon before the season started, Matt Boldy after their 7-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and have now lost Alex Goligoski to a lower-body injury. So they need certain guys to step up, which leads us to the Wild's keys to the game.
1.) Stars need to step up
Without Boldy and a banged-up blueline that hasn't been very good to start the year, the Wild really need their star players to step up tonight against Montreal.
Ryan Hartman scored the game's first goal against the Maple Leafs but after that, the Wild's first line went a little quiet. The Wild's first line of Hartman, Kirill Kaprizov, and Mats Zuccarello have played the most minutes together on the team at 22.07.
According to Moneypuck, they have allowed the second most expected goals against and rank third behind the Wild's fourth line in expected goals for. They also allowed a team leading, eight scoring chances against Toronto according to Natural Stat Trick.
Sure both Kaprizov and Zuccarello have two points in two games, but the Wild need a little more out of them on both sides of the puck, especially tonight without a lot of key players.
2.) Fleury needs a strong game
The Wild have allowed the 12th worst expected goals against, this season and every team in front of them has played one or two more games than the Wild, except for the San Jose Sharks.
The point is, the Wild's defense and overall defensive play haven't been the best this year. Sure they shutout the Florida Panthers but that was on the heels of a 41-save shutout by Filip Gustavsson in a game where the Wild allowed 3.68 expected goals for Florida. But Gustavsson was just too good.
Without Spurgeon, Boldy, and Goligoski the Wild need to have Fleury play sharp if they want to have a good chance at beating the Canadiens tonight. They also need their stars to step up.