Sharks at Wild preview

SHARKS (18-11-5) at WILD (17-13-2)
8 p.m. ET; FS-N, NBCSCA, NHL.TV

The Sharks, who have won four straight and are 6-1-0 in their past seven games, have scored at least five goals in four of their past six games.
Forward Mikko Koivu will return for Minnesota after missing four games with an upper-body injury. The Wild, 2-1-0 in their past three games after going 1-5-0 in their previous six games, will be without defenseman Mathew Dumba, who will be out at least a week after sustaining an upper-body injury in the first period of a 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday. Dumba leads all NHL defensemen with 12 goals.

Players to watch

Sharks center Logan Couture has 17 points (five goals, 12 assists) in his past 14 games.
Wild forward Mikael Granlund has five assists in a three-game point streak and 10 points (one goal, nine assists) in his past eight games.

They said it

"[The Wild are] a good team. They're getting healthy, getting some key players back tonight. We always have a hard time in this building, this is a tough environment to play in, it's a rink where they get a lot of momentum from the crowd. …We've got to manage that. It's always a tough night when we come in here." -- Sharks coach Pete DeBoer
"[The Sharks] were at the beginning of the year thought to be one of the best teams in the League and to vie for the Stanley Cup, and now they're starting to play like it. So it's a great test but listen, when you succeed in a test, you usually feel pretty good." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau

Sharks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Joe Pavelski -- Joonas Donskoi
Tomas Hertl -- Logan Couture -- Timo Meier
Marcus Sorensen -- Joe Thornton -- Kevin Labanc
Barclay Goodrow - Lukas Radil -- Melker Karlsson
Radim Simek -- Brent Burns
Brenden Dillon -- Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun
Martin Jones
Aaron Dell
Scratched: Tim Heed, Joakim Ryan, Rourke Chartier
Injured: None

Wild projected lineup

Jordan Greenway -- Eric Staal -- Mikael Granlund
Jason Zucker -- Mikko Koivu -- Luke Kunin
Zach Parise -- Charlie Coyle -- Nino Niederreiter
Marcus Foligno -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Eric Fehr
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin -- Greg Pateryn
Nick Seeler -- Nate Prosser
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Scratched: JT Brown, Matt Hendricks
Injured: Matt Dumba (upper body)

Status report

Zucker, who missed the game against the Flames with an illness, will return.

Stat pack

Burns has five assists in a three-game point streak. …Thornton is one assist from tying Marcel Dionne (1,040) for 10th place on the NHL all-time list. … Parise has six points (two goals, four assists) in his past four games. ... Suter has five assists in his past three games.