Preview: Wild desperate for win over terrible Canucks

Somebody has to win. The Minnesota Wild are hosting the Vancouver Canucks tonight and it is a clash between two teams that have yet won a game in the 2022-23 season.

For the Wild, it has been close games that have just been ruined by the goaltending and/or defense, and them not being able to score out of their problems. They have attempted at coming back, tied the game even, and just have failed to complete their task.

On the other side of the rink for tonight’s game, the Canucks have led by multiple goals in all of their games but have lost all of them. That is some tragedy that is impossible to even comprehend. Starting off the game so well, having their offense work their typical skillful way of putting pucks behind the opposing goalie, and then to just crumble because of poor defense and break a couple of (bad) records along the way.

Hopefully the Wild don’t contribute to that record and just win the normal way.

Projected Wild lineup:

Kirill Kaprizov — Ryan Hartman — Mats Zuccarello
Jordan Greenway — Joel Eriksson Ek — Marcus Foligno
Matt Boldy — Marco Rossi — Frederick Gaudreau
Brandon Duhaime — Sam Steel — Tyson Jost

Jake Middleton — Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin — Matt Dumba
Alex Goligoski — Calen Addison

I suspect Marc-Andre Fleury will get the nod in between the pipes tonight, but purely because Filip Gustavsson wasn’t that great either.

Head coach Dean Evason unveiled these lines at practice yesterday and we cannot be more excited to see them in action. Marco Rossi gets his deserved spot in the top-nine forward group for the first time and alongside Matt Boldy, who will basically help create every single scoring chance, and the defensively-reliable Frederick Gaudreau.

The “GREEF” line is back for the first time this season and we’re ready for them to control and drive play like the best team in hockey, and then there’s the rest. Plus, Alex Goligoski is playing in his 1,000th NHL game tonight. Exciting!

Projected Canucks lineup:

Nils Hoglander — Elias Pettersson — Vasily Podkolzin
Andrei Kuzmenko — J.T. Miller — Ilya Mikheyev
Tanner Pearson — Bo Horvat — Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua — Nils Aman — Curtis Lazar

Quinn Hughes — Tucker Poolman
Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Tyler Myers
Riley Stillman — Luke Schenn

Thatcher Demko most likely gets the start, in their attempt to earn their first points of the season.

You start to scroll down the lineup and you are somewhat baffled as to why this team is still searching for their first win of the season. While maybe unproven, that top-six forward group is very good. And then that third line? That could be easily a second or even first line on a mediocre team somewhere. They have some two-way talent, some elite offensive players...and then you look at the blue line and feel incredibly bad for Quinn Hughes. It is basically Hughes and potentially the worst group of players you could realistically put together if you’re picking blind out of the free agency pool and signing them to massive contracts. What did he do to deserve this?

Burning Questions

The most important question is: How did Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy play together?

This duo will have all eyes on them, from the fans in the stands to the coaches that are in charge of putting them together. It has worked in the past, but what can they do now? It will be something we need to (and certainly will) look out for. Maybe they can score a couple goals each, that would be nice.

Can Marc-Andre Fleury bounce back?

Fleury has started out his season maybe as worst as he ever could. Sporting a healthy .776 save percentage and 8.37 goals against average after getting killed in the first two games of the season, he will be back in between the pipes and hopefully will only allow three to four goals.

Please, just win.

This isn’t a question, but it still counts. All we want is something to cheer about and not have another early-season crisis like we have been dealing with over here.

See you tonight.