Capitals at Wild preview

CAPITALS (39-19-6) at WILD (32-25-7)
8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NHL.TV

The Wild, who have outscored opponents 17-5 during a three-game winning streak, are 12-5-1 in their past 18 games. Minnesota trails the Nashville Predators by one point for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
The Capitals are 4-7-1 in their past 12 games. Washington is in first place in the Metropolitan Division, one point ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Players to watch

Capitals forward Tom Wilson has three goals in his past five games.
Wild forward Kevin Fiala has three goals and seven points in a three-game goal/point streak.

They said it

"[Minnesota is] a really hard-working team. I think they've simplified their game and have really bought into it. You can see they're playing with confidence. … It'll be a difficult game for us tonight in their building." -- Capitals coach Todd Reirden
"I think everybody on our team is making it easy for us to stay with everything, the lineup, the lines, the pairings, everybody. We've played well, we've played as a team, we certainly need to keep doing that."-- Wild coach Dean Evason

Capitals projected lineup

Alex Ovechkin -- Evgeny Kuznetsov -- Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana -- Nicklas Backstrom -- T.J. Oshie
Carl Hagelin -- Lars Eller -- Ilya Kovalchuk
Richard Panik -- Nic Dowd -- Garnet Hathaway
Brenden Dillon -- John Carlson
Michal Kempny -- Dmitry Orlov
Jonas Siegenthaler -- Nick Jensen
Braden Holtby
Ilya Samsonov
Scratched:Travis Boyd, Brendan Leipsic, Radko Gudas
Injured: None

Wild projected lineup

Gerry Mayhew -- Eric Staal -- Kevin Fiala
Marcus Foligno -- Alex Galchenyuk -- Mats Zuccarello
Zach Parise -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Jordan Greenway
Ryan Donato -- Mikko Koivu -- Ryan Hartman
Ryan Suter -- Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin -- Matt Dumba
Brad Hunt -- Greg Pateryn
Alex Stalock
Devan Dubnyk
Scratched:Victor Rask
Injured: Luke Kunin (upper body), Carson Soucy (upper body)

Status report

Kunin has been medically cleared and could return when the Wild host the Predators on Tuesday.

Stat pack

Ovechkin has three goals in his past 10 games after 15 points (14 goals, one assist) in his previous seven. … The Capitals have the most road wins in the NHL (21-10-1) but have lost four straight away from home. … Koivu has five points (two goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak. … Hartman has five points (two goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak. … Parise has four points (one goal, three assists) in a three-game point streak.