The good news for the Wild: Playing quality defense not only gives the team its best chance of winning, but can be accomplished no matter who is in the lineup.
"When you're missing skilled players, it's a little more difficult to score so you have to play better defense," Boudreau said.
Through four games, Minnesota's defensive game has not been as sharp as it needs to be. Three times, the Wild has allowed an opponent to score four goals, with one other team reaching five (Carolina's fifth goal came via the shootout).
For one of the NHL's stingiest teams last season, and historically, that's simply not good enough.
"I think if you look at the games, we've played well," said Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk. "I think we've just had some miscues, and I'd say some uncharacteristic stuff in our end that we're usually extremely sharp at, that's costing us goals that tie the game and in overtime.
"But if you look at the games as a whole, I think we're playing just fine, especially for the start of the season. We're only going to get better and tighten things up and we know we need to start that tonight."
With a shortened roster much of the week, the Wild spent a good portion of practice time on battle drills and becoming tougher on the puck, two things that could help Minnesota have success tonight.
For Winnipeg, it's been a tale of two teams early in the season.
In three games started by goaltender Steve Mason, the Jets have surrendered 18 goals and are 0-3. In games started by Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg has given up five goals and is 3-0.
Hellebuyck will be between the posts on Friday, so offense could be at a premium.
That's what Minnesota has prepared all week for.
"This is a team that, year in and year out, has been known way more about their defense than they have about their offense," Boudreau said of his own club. "They took great pride in it. So when you have [three out of four] with four goals against, that's tough."
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Marcus Foligno - Eric Staal - Chris Stewart
Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund
Tyler Ennis - Matt Cullen - Luke Kunin
Daniel Winnik - Joel Eriksson Ek - Zack Mitchell
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Matt Dumba
Mike Reilly - Kyle Quincey
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
JETS
Kyle Connor - Mark Scheifele - Blake Wheeler
Nikolaj Ehlers - Bryan Little - Patrik Laine
Brandon Tanev - Andrew Copp - Joel Armia
Shawn Matthias - Nic Petan - Brendan Lemieux
Josh Morrissey - Jacob Trouba
Toby Enstrom -Dustin Byfuglien
Tucker Poolman - Tyler Myers
Connor Hellebuyck
Steve Mason
