Wild's stellar point streak meets Flames' road challenge. Gustavsson starts as Minnesota aims to extend dominance. Who takes the ice?
The Minnesota Wild (15-7-4) is back in action tonight against the Calgary Flames (9-15-4) to continue its road trip.
Minnesota went 0-2-1 against the Flames last season but won't he first game 2-0 this year on a Jesper Wallstedt shutout. Filip Gustavsson will start tonight though.
Devin Cooley started that game as well but it will be Dustin Wolf tonight instead. The Wild is 15-10-3 in its last 28 games at the Saddledome after starting the all-time series 3-18-4.
Gustavsson stopped all 19 shots faced at Pittsburgh (11/21) to reach 13 career shutouts and passed Manny Fernandez (12 SO) for fourth-most in Wild history.
He is 3-0-2 in his last five games, posting a 1.72 GAA and a .931 SV% with one shutout. Marco Rossi will miss his tenth game in a row tonight and Danila Yurov will miss his second. Both are out with lower-body injuries.
The Wild own an active 12-game point streak (10-0-2) which is the third-longest run in franchise history and the club’s longest since a franchise-record 14-game run (11-0-3) from Feb 17-March 15 in 2023.
Minnesota is 12-1-2 (.867) since Nov. 1, ranking tied for first in the NHL in wins and points (26). The Wild lead the NHL in team save percentage (.948) and team goals-against (1.55) and are tied for third with a plus-20 goal differential.
Wild Projected Lines
Kirill Kaprizov - Ryan Hartman - Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson - Joel Eriksson Ek - Matt Boldy
Yakov Trenin - Nico Sturm - Vladimir Tarasenko
Liam Ohgren - Ben Jones - Tyler Pitlick
Defense:
Jake Middleton - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Brock Faber
Zeev Buium - Zach Bogosian
Starting Goaltender: Filip Gustavsson
Scratched: Daemon Hunt, Hunter Haight.
Injured: Danila Yurov (undisclosed), Marco Rossi (lower-body), Marcus Foligno (lower-body), Vinnie Hinostroza (lower-body).
Flames Projected Lines
Jonathan Huberdeau - Morgan Frost - Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich - Nazem Kadri - Joel Farabee
Connor Zary - Mikael Backlund - Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg - John Beecher - Adam Klapka
Defense:
Kevin Bahl - Rasmus Andersson
Yan Kuznetsov - MacKenzie Weegar
Joel Hanley - Jake Bean
Starting Goaltender: Dustin Wolf
Scratched: Brayden Pachal, Dryden Hunt.
Injured: Martin Pospisil (undisclosed), Samuel Honzek (upper-body), Zayne Parekh (upper-body).
How to Watch & Listen: Tonight's game will be on Fanduel Sports Network North. Anthony LaPanta will be on the play-by-play with Ryan Carter as the color analyst and Kevin Gorg the reporter. The radio broadcast will be on KFAN FM 100.3 with Joe O'Donnell behind the mic doing the play-by-play. Tom Reid as the color analyst and Kevin Falness as the Studio Host.
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