ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Wild continue their six-game homestand this afternoon against the Vegas Golden Knights inside Xcel Energy Center in what defenseman Jonas Brodin calls “a playoff game” as their quest for a wild-card spot reaches a crossroads.
“It’s probably the biggest game of the year again,” Filip Gustavsson said Thursday, “so we need to win that.”
That is the reality of the Wild's situation.
The Wild (35-28-9) need to beat the Golden Knights (40-25-8) in regulation if they want to have a chance at catching up to the teams in front of them. After all, the Wild are eight points outside of the playoff picture with 10 games remaining on the schedule.
The Wild hope to have more success against Vegas as Minnesota won 5-3 in the first meeting this season. Update: Marcus Foligno remains out of the lineup and will miss his second straight game after being a game-time decision.
Wild projected lines
Kaprizov — Eriksson Ek — Boldy
Zuccarello — Rossi — Hartman
Johansson — Khusnutdinov — Gaudreau
Shaw — Lucchini — Lettieri
Defensive pairs:
Middleton — Faber
Brodin — Bogosian
Merrill — Chisholm
Projected starter: Gustavsson
Scratched: Beckman, Mermis and Goligoski
Injured: Foligno and Spurgeon
Golden Knights projected lines
Ivan Barbashev — Jack Eichel — Jonathan Marchessault
Brett Howden — Chandler Stephenson — Michael Amadio
Pavel Dorofeyev — William Karlsson — Anthony Mantha
Paul Cotter — Nicholas Roy — Keegan Kolesar
Defensive pairs:
Nicholas Hague — Noah Hanifin
Brayden McNabb — Shea Theodore
Alex Pietrangelo — Zach Whitecloud
Projected starter: Logan Thompson
Scratched: Ben Hutton and Alec Martinez
Injured: Mark Stone, Tomas Hertl, William Carrier and Adin Hill
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