By Thomas Williams -
Just over a week since the Minnesota Wild visited the Vancouver Canucks, they are now hosting the team from the Pacific Northwest at their own rink for a Saturday afternoon clash.
Last time, the Canucks shutout the Wild a decisively earned a 2-0 victory thanks to Demko standing on his head and a couple depth players chipping in with goals. Now, the Wild are having a slightly better time. They have earned two consecutive wins, including a shutout of their own over the Seattle Kraken, and are looking more like the team that started their hot streak under John Hynes.
Unfortunately, the Canucks are doing even better. After their win over the Wild, they went on to claim victories over three Cup favorites. Defeating the Hurricanes, Lightning, and Panthers all on home ice. They are looking dangerous as ever.
The one way that the Wild could stave off the Canucks is if they can just not take any penalties or kill them off successfully. Vancouver has the second-most goals scored on the man advantage and the fifth-highest success rate on those power plays. And meanwhile, the Wild have the second-worst penalty kill, having just been able to kill off 71.6%.
If this game stays at 5-on-5, Minnesota has a chance. If it goes into special teams often enough, then they might just be doomed.
When: 1:00 p.m. CT
Where: Xcel Energy Center
TV: Bally Sports North
Radio: KFAN 100.3
Projected Wild lineup
Kirill Kaprizov -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Matt Boldy
Marcus Johansson -- Marco Rossi -- Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Foligno -- Frederick Gaudreau -- Patrick Maroon
Brandon Duhaime -- Connor Dewar -- Ryan Hartman
Jake Middleton -- Brock Faber
Alex Goligoski -- Zach Bogosian
Dakota Mermis -- Jon Merrill
Filip Gustavsson
Marc-Andre Fleury
Projected Canucks lineup
Ilya Mikheyev -- Elias Pettersson -- Sam Lafferty
Nils Hoglander -- J.T. Miller -- Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua -- Teddy Blueger -- Conor Garland
Andrei Kuzmenko -- Pius Suter -- Phil Di Giuseppe
Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek
Nikita Zadorov -- Tyler Myers
Ian Cole -- Noah Juulsen
Thatcher Demko
Casey DeSmith
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