Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. Vegas

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
With a week remaining in the regular season, the Wild and Vegas Golden Knights will tangle one final time on Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.
The game comes on the heels of a memorable third-period comeback by Minnesota, one which saw the Wild overcome a two-goal deficit by scoring three unanswered goals - including two in the final two minutes of regulation - in a 6-5 win on Monday.
The win moved Minnesota to within four points of the first-place Knights in the West Division and provided the Wild with a glimmer of hope should it win in regulation again on Wednesday.
In between the clubs is Colorado, which sits second in the West, two points back of Vegas and two clear of Minnesota. All three teams could conceivably finish in each of the three top spots, so there remains plenty to be decided as this shortened campaign winds to a close.
A win by the Golden Knights on Wednesday would all but eliminate the Wild from the division title conversation, but a victory by the Wild would make for one exciting - and unpredictable - final few days.
"In a race like this, it's obviously huge to deny them points," said Wild forward Nick Bonino, who scored two goals and assisted on another in the win on Monday. "As a group, we're pretty sure at some point we're going to have to go through Vegas or Colorado. Obviously, we'd love to continue to move up the standings, but wherever we end up, we just want to focus on these five games, playing the right way, flipping the playoff switch now, getting our mind right and just playing the right way all the way through."
The win marked the third consecutive game the Wild has rallied from multiple goals down in the third period, and the second-straight time its done so and come away with the victory.
After digging out from two back last Thursday against the St. Louis Blues, tying the game late with the extra attacker, it was the Blues that earned the extra point in overtime.
The same script followed two nights later, with Minnesota pulling its goaltender and tying the game in the final minutes, only this time, Kevin Fiala won it with his second career overtime goal.
Fiala fed Kirill Kaprizov for the tying marker with Cam Talbot on the bench on Monday, only to see Jonas Brodin win it on the very next shift, denying Vegas an opportunity to at least salvage a point.
"I think the belief is in each other. I think that's the key," Wild coach Dean Evason said of his team's belief in its ability to come back in games. "You don't know obviously what's going to happen, the result, but I think the group believes that if their attitude is correct, then we're going to have an opportunity.
"That's what they do when we get down. We don't panic. There's no throwing shots at each other. There's no frustration."
Fiala also scored a goal in the game on Monday, his 20th of the season. He's tallied a goal in three consecutive games, and has been red-hot of late, scoring 11 goals and assisting on 14 others for 25 points over his past 19 outings. He's also a plus-4 during that stretch.
Bonino has five multi-point games over his past 11 games, scoring five goals and 14 points over that span. The veteran centerman, who turned 33 just over two weeks ago, also blocked a critical shot in the dying moments of the game to preserve the last-minute victory.
"He's won [two Stanley Cups]. That tells you everything," Evason said. "He knows exactly what to do. He knows how to do it. And he teaches our group every night."
Marcus Johansson, who has missed the past two games with an upper-body injury, could be primed to return to the lineup on Wednesday.
For Vegas, Max Pacioretty could return after missing Monday's game with an undisclosed injury. He left the team's previous game against the Arizona Coyotes with the injury and was a game-time decision Monday.
Pacioretty's absence was felt, as the former Montreal Canadien leads the Knights in goals with 24 this season. Pacioretty has been hard on the Wild in his career, scoring 10 goals and 17 points in 22 career matches.
Who starts in goal for the Knights could be the bigger question. Robin Lehner allowed six goals on 32 shots on Monday, the most goals he's allowed in a game since being traded to Vegas mid-year last season. Prior to that, Lehner had allowed a total of seven goals in his previous five games combined.
Marc-Andre Fleury has a 23-10-0 record this season with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage, but three of those 10 losses have come at the hands of Minnesota, against whom he is 2-3-0 with a 2.52 goals against and a .917 save percentage.
In his career versus the Wild, Fleury is 6-13-0 with a 3.11 goals against and a .894 save percentage in 19 starts.
Minnesota leads the NHL in all-time wins against Vegas, posting an 11-2-2 record against the League's most recent addition. That includes a 6-0-1 record all-time in downtown St. Paul and a 5-1-1 record against the Knights this season.