Wild at Stars preview
Minnesota forward Parise to play 1,000th NHL game; Dallas can move into second place in Central
by Josh Clark / NHL.com Independent Correspondent
WILD (25-22-6) at STARS (30-18-5)
8:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, FS-SW+, FS-N, FS-WI, NHL.TV
The Game
Zach Parise will play his 1,000th NHL game when the Minnesota Wild visit the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Friday.
The forward will become the 347th NHL player and the eighth Minnesota-born player to reach the milestone. He has 779 points (381 goals, 398 assists) with the New Jersey Devils and Wild, including 33 points (20 goals, 13 assists) in 53 games this season.
Minnesota, four points behind the Calgary Flames for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference, is 5-2-0 in its past seven games after going 1-5-1 in its previous seven.
The Stars, 3-1-1 in their past five games after going 1-3-0 in their previous four, can move ahead of the Colorado Avalanche into second place in the Central Division with a victory Friday.
Players to watch
Wild forward Mats Zuccarello has six points (three goals, three assists) in his past six games.
Stars forward Joe Pavelski has four points (three goals, one assist) in his past three games.
They said it
"We know we're going into a hornet's nest. It's a team that's been off for three days and will likely want to exact some revenge against us. These are the games where you dig deep and hopefully come up big." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau on playing the Stars after winning 7-0 in their previous meeting Jan. 18
"Any home game is a good game. At the start of the month, you have a quick meeting with your team and realize that seven of your next nine are on the road at that point. You have to take full advantage of your home games when you can. We just have to make sure we control what we can control, and home ice is very important in this month because there aren't many home games." -- Stars coach Rick Bowness
Wild projected lineup
Zach Parise -- Eric Staal -- Mats Zuccarello
Jason Zucker -- Luke Kunin -- Kevin Fiala
Marcus Foligno -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Jordan Greenway
Ryan Donato -- Mikko Koivu -- Ryan Hartman
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin -- Matt Dumba
Brad Hunt -- Greg Pateryn
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Scratched: Victor Rask, Matt Bartkowski
Injured: Carson Soucy (illness)
Stars projected lineup
Jamie Benn -- Roope Hintz -- Tyler Seguin
Mattias Janmark -- Joe Pavelski -- Alexander Radulov
Andrew Cogliano -- Radek Faksa -- Blake Comeau
Denis Gurianov -- Jason Dickinson -- Corey Perry
Esa Lindell -- John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen -- Roman Polak
Jamie Oleksiak -- Stephen Johns
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched: Joel Kiviranta, Andrej Sekera, Taylor Fedun
Injured: Justin Dowling (lower body)
Status report
The Wild did not hold a morning skate. … Minnesota recalled Bartkowski, a defenseman, from Iowa of the American Hockey League on Thursday.
Stat pack
Parise has 34 points (17 goals, 17 assists) in 36 games against Dallas. … Seguin has 38 points (15 goals, 23 assists) in 32 games against Minnesota. … The Stars are 5-1-1 in their past seven home games against the Wild.