Wild at Stars preview

WILD (26-21-3) at STARS (25-21-4)
8 p.m. ET; FS-SW, FS-N, FS-WI, NHL.TV

The Wild return from their NHL-mandated five-day break before the 2019 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend, which followed a 5-2 win at the Colorado Avalanche on Jan. 23. The three-game winning streak is Minnesota's longest since winning five straight in October.
The Stars will play the last of six consecutive home games. They are 2-3-0 in the first five, including a 1-0 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday, but have scored no more than one goal in four of the five games.
The Central Division rivals have split their first two games this season. The Wild won 3-1 at Dallas on Oct. 19; the Stars won 2-1 in overtime at Xcel Energy Center on Dec. 22.

Players to watch

Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk is 3-0-0 in his past three starts with a 1.67 goals-against average and a .932 save percentage. He was 7-2-0 in January and has won six of his past seven road starts.
Stars forward Jamie Benn scored his team-leading 19th goal of the season on Wednesday. He has three points (two goals, one assist) in his past seven games.

They said it

"You just make sure you take care of your body and get your rest, but I think we need to come out and get that jump right away." -- Wild forward Charlie Coyle on playing the 14 games in the next 26 days
"Just look at the standings. They're one point ahead of us in the same amount of games, so it's probably the most important game of the season." -- Stars defenseman John Klingberg

Wild projected lineup

Jason Zucker -- Mikko Koivu -- Mikael Granlund
Jordan Greenway -- Eric Staal -- Charlie Coyle
Zach Parise -- Victor Rask -- Pontus Aberg
Marcus Foligno -- Eric Fehr -- JT Brown
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin -- Greg Pateryn
Nick Seeler -- Brad Hunt
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Scratched:Matt Hendricks, Anthony Bitetto, Nate Prosser
Injured:Matt Dumba (upper body)

Stars projected lineup

Jamie Benn -- Radek Faksa -- Blake Comeau
Mattias Janmark -- Tyler Seguin -- Alexander Radulov
Andrew Cogliano -- Jason Spezza -- Valeri Nichushkin
Denis Gurianov --
Roope Hintz
-- Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell -- John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen -- Roman Polak
Jamie Oleksiak -- Taylor Fedun
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched:Julius Honka, Connor Carrick
Injured:Stephen Johns (upper body), Marc Methot (lower body), Martin Hanzal (back), Tyler Pitlick (upper body), Jason Dickinson (upper body)

Status report

Fehr returns after missing nine games with an upper-body injury. … Pitlick will miss his third straight game since being injured on Jan. 17 and is likely to be out at least two weeks. Dickinson left during the third period on Wednesday and will miss the next two games.

Stat pack

Parise has 21 points (seven goals, 14 assists) in his past 22 games. … Bishop, coming off his third shutout of the season, is 3-2-0 in his past five starts with a 1.63 GAA and a .940 save percentage.