In addition to getting its road record cleaned up, Minnesota is looking to avoid a season sweep by the Canucks, who have won each of the first two meetings -- both of which came at Xcel Energy Center, where the Wild has been one of the best home teams in the NHL this season.
"I think tonight, we have an opponent we've been taking a little bit lightly this season," said Wild forward Marcus Foligno. "They've beaten us twice in our arena, that's the motivation tonight, is to come in here and do what they've done to us. Starting the trip off right, we need those points."
While home ice has been friendly for most of the season for the Wild, the road has been the exact opposite. Coach Bruce Boudreau has identified some major trends, however. Minnesota ranks near the bottom of the League in both goals against and in special teams when playing away from St. Paul.
The good news is, in his eyes at least, the solution is rather simple.
"On the road, we don't seem to work as hard as we do when we're at home," Boudreau said. "It's pretty hard when you're the No. 1 team defensively in the League at home and No. 30 on the road. I don't think it's anything structurally except work.
"If we work as hard as we do on the road -- and we did that on the New York trip, we worked just as hard on the road as we did at home and we came away with three wins and allowed five goals. Last week, we didn't do either one and in two games, we allowed 12 goals. If we work really hard and do the right things, we'll be successful."
Both games this season against the Canucks have been workmanlike efforts; despite being 2-0 versus the Wild this season, Vancouver has scored just four goals in those games. One of those wins came in overtime, while the other was a 1-0 win.
Jumping out to an early lead could be critical for Minnesota. Brock Boeser -- the Canucks' leading scorer this season -- is expected to miss the remainder of the season with a back injury. With former Wild forward Thomas Vanek dealt to Columbus at the trade deadline, goals could be difficult to come by.
"We gotta be comfortable with that," said Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk. "They're gonna look for turnovers for opportunities to capitalize and we've gotta do the same thing. Hopefully we can outwork them and score a few goals."
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Jason Zucker - Eric Staal - Mikael Granlund
Zach Parise - Mikko Koivu - Nino Niederreiter
Tyler Ennis - Matt Cullen - Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno - Joel Eriksson Ek - Daniel Winnik
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Matt Dumba
Gustav Olofsson - Nate Prosser
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
CANUCKS
Brendan Leipsic - Bo Horvat - Sam Gagner
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Jussi Jokinen
Darren Archibald - Brandon Sutter - Jake Virtanen
Reid Boucher - Nic Dowd - Tyler Motte
Alexander Edler - Erik Gudbranson
Michael Del Zotto - Troy Stetcher
Alex Biega - Derrick Pouliot
Anders Nilsson
Jacob Markstrom
Related:
- Wild Warmup: Minnesota at Vancouver
- Photo blog: Wild morning skate in Vancouver
