At the Rink: Avalanche at Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Colorado Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie will not play against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Barrie, who has a sore hip, did not play Thursday in a 3-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings and missed practice Friday. He did make the trip here, and though he didn't skate with teammates Saturday morning, he did on his own afterward.

Coach Patrick Roy said he would be surprised if Barrie played Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets, but did not rule it out.

"Still day-to-day. He won't play [Saturday] but we'll see about tomorrow," Roy said. "Tomorrow is another day and I'll know more [after his skate Saturday]. We'll see how he feels out there on the ice."

With Barrie out, Stefan Elliott will play. Elliott, called up last week from Lake Erie of the American Hockey League, played in his first NHL game this season against the Red Wings, skating 16:18 with four shots on goal.

"I think he was a little nervous, which is normal," Roy said. "But I was very happy that we brought him in and had a chance to work with him for a few days and a few practices before playing his first game. I thought that was important."

The Wild shut out the Avalanche in each of their first two games, but those were in October, when Minnesota opened the season with back-to-back victories.

Wild coach Mike Yeo said those games have no bearing on this game.

"None whatsoever," Yeo said. "There might be some things we can take from them. I think we have played some good hockey against them in the past. But that's such a long time ago and I think there are some differences in the way they are playing the game."

Minnesota forward Zach Parise said he sees teams that have had similar seasons. Colorado got off to a poor start, dug itself a hole but has started to play better of late. Minnesota went through a stretch of difficult times but appears to have stabilized since acquiring goaltender Devan Dubnyk from the Arizona Coyotes in a mid-January trade.

"We've had some really good, entertaining games with them the last couple of years," Parise said. "The games are a lot of fun."

Here are the projected lineups:

AVALANCHE

Alex Tanguay - Matt Duchene - Jarome Iginla

Gabriel Landeskog - Ryan O'Reilly - Nathan MacKinnon

Cody McLeod - John Mitchell - Dennis Everberg

Maxime Talbot - Marc-Andre Cliche - Daniel Briere

Jan Hejda - Zach Redmond

Nate Guenin - Stefan Elliott

Nick Holden - Brad Stuart

Semyon Varlamov

Reto Berra

Scratched: Karl Stollery

Injured: Tyson Barrie (hip), Patrick Bordeleau (fractured kneecap), Erik Johnson (knee), Jamie McGinn (back), Borna Rendulic (broken leg), Ryan Wilson (shoulder), Jesse Winchester (concussion)

WILD

Zach Parise - Mikael Granlund - Thomas Vanek

Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Jason Pominville

Ryan Carter - Erik Haula - Kyle Brodziak

Nino Niederreiter - Charlie Coyle - Jordan Schroeder

Ryan Suter - Jonas Brodin

Marco Scandella - Jared Spurgeon

Nate Prosser - Matt Dumba

Devan Dubnyk

Niklas Backstrom

Scratched: Christian Folin

Injured: Keith Ballard (head/face), Justin Fontaine (groin), Matt Cooke (sports hernia)

Status report: Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper will make his final conditioning start Saturday for Iowa of the American Hockey League. He will rejoin the Wild in time for their game Monday against the Vancouver Canucks.

Who's hot: Varlamov has allowed two goals or fewer in each of his past three starts and in nine of his past 12. ... Parise has a point in each of his past three games (two goals) and in seven of his past eight (seven goals, nine points).