The Minnesota Wild (25-23-6) and Vancouver Canucks (37-13-6) meet this afternoon for a third and final time this season. The Wild, who had their four-game win streak snapped by the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, enter today's game with a 7-2-1 record in the past 10 games, while the Canucks are 6-2-2.
The Canucks won 2-0 in the first meeting on Dec. 7, while the Wild took the second by a 2-1 score in a shootout on Dec. 16.
The Wild hope to continue their strong start out of the break, where they've gone 4-0-1. This won't be an easy week, though. After today's game against the Canucks — who lead the NHL with 80 points — the Wild face the Winnipeg Jets tomorrow, the Edmonton Oilers Friday and the Seattle Kraken Saturday.
Coach John Hynes didn't reveal lineup changes to the media at Sunday's practice because the coaching staff planned to discuss the lineup later that day. But Hynes confirmed the lineup would be the same on KFAN Monday morning. That means Declan Chisholm is staying in the lineup after scoring in his Wild debut. Connor Dewar and Ryan Hartman are centering the third and fourth lines, respectively, after swapping positions in Saturday's game. Mason Shaw is healthy scratched, but could play at some point this week.
Wild projected lines
Kaprizov — Eriksson Ek — Boldy
Johansson — Rossi — Zuccarello
Duhaime — Dewar — Gaudreau
Lucchini — Hartman — Lettieri
Defensive pairs:
Middleton — Faber
Brodin — Bogosian
Merrill — Chisholm
Projected starter: Gustavsson
Scratched: Goligoski, Mermis and Shaw
Injured: Foligno (lower-body) and Maroon (upper-body)
Canucks projected lines
Nils Hoglander — Elias Lindholm — Elias Pettersson
Pius Suter — J.T. Miller — Brock Boeser
IIya Mikheyev — Teddy Blueger — Conor Garland
Phillip Di Giuseppe — Nils Aman — Sam Lafferty
Defensive pairs:
Quinn Hughes — Filip Hronek
Ian Cole — Tyler Myers
Nikita Zadorov — Noah Juulsen
Projected starter: Casey DeSmith
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