Gamethread: Wild vs Blues

The 27-25-6 Minnesota Wild host the 30-22-6 St. Louis Blues in St. Paul today for a 2:00 PM matinee event on Hockey Day in America. The Blues are going for their 10th straight win to match a franchise record set back in the 2001-2002 season. Blues winger Vladimir Tarasenko has 19 points (10 goals, nine assists) in an NHL career-high 11-game point streak. Blues’ rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington will go for his eighth straight victory. With a win, Binnington would set the record for longest winning streak by a St. Louis rookie. He made 21 saves in a 4-0 win at the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday to tie former Blues net minder Brent Johnson, who won seven straight twice as a rookie for St. Louis in 2000-01.

St. Louis currently holds the third spot in the Central Division with 65 points.

Minnesota currently hold the second and final wild card spot and are fifth in the Central Division with 60 points.

This one should be a fun one!

Here are the projected lineups for today’s matinee game, thanks to Jessi Pierce of NHL.com.

Wild projected lineup

Zach Parise — Mikael Granlund — Luke Kunin

Jason Zucker — Eric Staal — Charlie Coyle

Jordan Greenway — Joel Eriksson Ek — Marcus Foligno

Brad Hunt — Eric Fehr — Pontus Aberg

Ryan Suter — Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin — Anthony Bitetto

Nick Seeler — Greg Pateryn

Devan Dubnyk

Alex Stalock

Scratched: Kyle Rau

Injured: Matt Dumba (upper body), Mikko Koivu (knee), Matt Hendricks (lower body), Victor Rask (lower body)

Blues projected lineup

Brayden Schenn — Ryan O’Reilly — Vladimir Tarasenko

Jaden Schwartz — Tyler Bozak — Robby Fabbri

Zach Sanford — Oskar Sundqvist — Pat Maroon

Mackenzie MacEachern — Ivan Barbashev — Robert Thomas

Joel Edmundson — Alex Pietrangelo

Jay Bouwmeester — Colton Parayko

Vince Dunn — Robert Bortuzzo

Jordan Binnington

Jake Allen

Scratched: Chris Butler, Alexander Steen, Sammy Blais

Injured: Carl Gunnarsson (upper body), David Perron (upper body)