The slumping Preds head north to take on the Minnesota Wild. It’s been a rough season in Minnesota too, though they’ve turned things around lately with three wins in a row after a terrible end of December and most of January.
The scoring lead is neatly shared among Kirill Kaprizov (first in points and second in both goals and assists with 18-24–42), Joel Eriksson Ek (20-18–38), and Mats Zuccarello (8-28–36). Youths Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi come fourth and fifth in overall scoring.
It’s been a rough season in goal, with Filip Gustavsson and Marc-André Fleury both hovering below a .900 sv% on the season. Fleury missed Tuesday’s game; if he’s out for this one as well the other goalie the Wild have played this year, Jesper Wallstedt, has had one very poor game. Their defense–at least at 5v5–has been very good, but that hasn’t been enough.
The Wild have struggled on special teams, with bad penalty-kill defense and some issues on the power play. While they get to the right areas of the ice, in quantity, they’ve struggled to convert those chances and they give up a lot of shorthanded goals.
The game airs at 7PM Central on Bally Sports South and 102.5 The Game. We’ll have your recap here after the game.
Statistics from naturalstattrick.com. Additional background from hockeyviz.com.