From the Rink: Wild hopes to keep the good times rolling on East Coast

NEWARK, N.J. -- It's a lot easier to spend a couple off days in New York when you've got a good taste in your mouth.
That's certainly been the case for the Wild, as it began its three-game, six-day East Coast trip to the Big Apple with a win Monday afternoon against the New York Islanders.
Everything is better after a win, even if the victory wasn't perfect. Everyone sleeps a little sounder.

After two days off in the city, the Wild will now go about the business of trying to accumulate four points in the final two days of the trip, beginning Thursday night in New Jersey against the Devils.
Minnesota did not skate on Thursday, as the lengthy drive time from Manhattan to Newark on a work day would have prevented the team from going about its normal game-day routine.

Instead, coach Bruce Boudreau added some extra conditioning to the end of Wednesday's practice and gave the team some rest ahead of back-to-back games; Minnesota will play at Madison Square Garden on Friday against the New York Rangers.
While the road has been a problem for the Wild for most of the season, Minnesota has now won three of four games away from Xcel Energy Center since the All-Star break.
That's still a small sample size, but Wild forward Zach Parise says he hopes the team has turned a corner in that regard.
"Hopefully, we've gotten those games out of our system where we've laid an egg in road games," Parise said. "Hopefully we don't do that anymore."
Minnesota's last road loss came almost three weeks ago in Dallas, when the Wild and Stars were scoreless near the midway point of the game. Dallas scored four times in a span of less than six minutes to open up a four-goal lead in an eventual 6-1 finish.
These types of quick bursts have hurt the Wild numerous times this season.
"That has been kind of a common theme; we give up one and then usually a couple more come in after," Parise said. "Hopefully we can start to respond better after goals -- goals for and goals against -- and not have that bit of a letdown after giving one up."
That was the case Monday in Brooklyn.
Minnesota scored the game's first goal, but saw the Islanders score in the final minute of the first period to tie and 1:57 into the second to take a 2-1 lead.
Instead of packing, Minnesota got back to work, calming things down and eventually scoring three straight goals of its own midway through the second, turning a one-goal deficit into a two-goal lead.
The Wild will need more of that kind of response the rest of the season. Of the 23 games remaining on the regular season docket, 13 will come on the road.
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Tyler Ennis - Eric Staal - Nino Niederreiter
Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund
Zach Parise - Matt Cullen - Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno - Joel Eriksson Ek - Daniel Winnik
Ryan Suter - Matt Dumba
Nick Seeler - Jared Spurgeon
Gustav Olofsson - Nate Prosser
Alex Stalock
Devan Dubnyk
DEVILS
Taylor Hall - Nico Hischier - Kyle Palmieri
Blake Coleman - Pavel Zacha - Jesper Bratt
Miles Wood - Travis Zajac - Stefan Noesen
Blake Pietila - Brian Boyle - Jimmy Hayes
Andy Greene - Sami Vatanen
John Moore - Damon Severson
Will Butcher - Ben Lovejoy
Eddie Lack
Keith Kinkaid
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- Wild Warmup: Minnesota at New Jersey - Wild the lastest team to try and slow Devils' Hall - Watch: Wild on slowing Hall