Rangers at Wild preview

RANGERS (27-24-5) at WILD (30-19-6)
8 p.m. ET; MSG, FS-N+, NHL.TV

The Rangers defeated the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets after general manager Jeff Gorton said they would be sellers before the 2018 NHL Trade Deadline (Feb. 26, 3 p.m. ET). New York is two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
The Wild lead the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks by one point for the second wild card into the playoffs from the West. They're 4-1-1 in their past six games and 8-2-2 in their past 12.

Players to watch

Rangers forward J.T. Miller has eight points (two goals, six assists) in his past seven games.
Wild forward Eric Staal has four points (two goals, two assists) in a three-game point streak and 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in his past 10 games.

They said it

"At the end of the night for us, nothing changes. We're here to win two points. We're going to put a plan together for tonight. They have to execute and they have to compete." -- Rangers coach Alain Vigneault
"If anybody's going to take [New York] lightly, it's certainly not me. I think Jeff Gorton is either a genius and knew that that was going to happen or the players said '… we're going to show you that we don't need to abandon.' Since that letter came out, they've played awful good and that's the team I expect to be playing tonight." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau

Rangers projected lineup

Rick Nash -- Mika Zibanejad -- Mats Zuccarello
Michael Grabner -- Kevin Hayes -- J.T. Miller
Jimmy Vesey -- David Desharnais -- Jesper Fast
Cody McLeod --
Peter Holland
--
Vinni Lettieri
Brady Skjei --
Neal Pionk
Nick Holden --
Tony DeAngelo
John Gilmour
--
Ryan Sproul
Henrik Lundqvist
Alexandar Georgiev
Scratched:Paul Carey
Injured:Steven Kampfer (broken hand), Chris Kreider (blood clot, right arm), Kevin Shattenkirk (knee surgery), Pavel Buchnevich (concussion symptoms), Marc Staal (cervical strain), Ondrej Pavelec (sprained MCL), Ryan McDonagh (upper body)

Wild projected lineup

Jason Zucker -- Mikko Koivu -- Mikael Granlund
Tyler Ennis -- Eric Staal -- Nino Niederreiter
Zach Parise -- Matt Cullen -- Charlie Coyle
Daniel Winnik -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Marcus Foligno
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Gustav Olofsson -- Mathew Dumba
Nick Seeler
-- Nate Prosser
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Scratched:Chris Stewart, Mike Reilly
Injured:Jonas Brodin (hand)

Status report

Kampfer is expected to miss 4-6 weeks. … Sproul will make his NHL debut after he was recalled from Hartford of the American Hockey League on Monday. … Stewart has been a healthy scratch for four straight games. … Seeler will play his first game with Minnesota.

Stat pack

Lundqvist is 2-0-0 with 1.80 goals-against average and .956 save percentage in his past two starts. …Granlund has 13 points (four goals, nine assists) in the past 13 games.