Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. Nashville

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
ST. PAUL --The Wild will try and tie the second-longest winning streak to start a season in franchise history on Sunday when it hosts the Nashville Predators at Xcel Energy Center.
Minnesota earned its fourth consecutive win on Saturday when Ryan Hartman's overtime goal lifted the club to a 4-3 victory, improving the team to 4-0-0 through four games - equalling the Wild's start to the 2008-09 season.
The franchise record of six consecutive victories (2006-07) is within sight and could be matched in Vancouver if the Wild can continue its winning ways against the Predators, whom Minnesota hasn't played since March 3, 2020. Just over a week later, the pandemic shut down the 2019-20 season.
All four of Minnesota's victories this season have come after surrendering the first goal of the game. The Wild came back from a pair of deficits in the win Saturday.

"Somebody said that's what we're trying to do, is keep the fans interested and draw them in. Certainly we'd like to do it a little bit earlier," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "Obviously, we'd like to start with a lead but again we love our resilience and we weren't good early. But they were real good, real good."
Hartman, Brandon Duhaime, Jared Spurgeon and Jon Merrill scored goals for the Wild on Saturday. Minnesota has 17 players with at least one point through four games, tied for third-most in the NHL.
For Duhaime, it was his first NHL goal in his fourth career game. For Merrill, is snapped a nearly two-year goal drought that spanned 58 games. It came after an Anaheim challenge for offsides, that was ultimately proven to be legal.
"When you don't score often, your teammates get pretty excited when you do score," Merrill said. "I was just trying to mention to the refs that I haven't scored in a while, I could really use this one."
For the first time this season, the Wild is expected to start goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen. Cam Talbot has played each of the first four games, but with back-to-back games occurring for a second consecutive weekend and a three-game road trip on the horizon, the time is right to give Kahkonen the crease.
Kahkonen saw a bulk of the playing time in the exhibition season and is coming off a rookie campaign that saw him finish 16-8-0 with a 2.88 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage.

St. Louis and Minnesota will begin the day Sunday atop the Central Division standings. Each club is 4-0-0 and has eight points, despite the fact both clubs have played one fewer game than every other team in the division.
The Wild and Blues are two of eight teams who have yet to lose a game in regulation this season, although both Pittsburgh and Washington have lost twice in overtime.
Nashville has won just once in its first five games and currently stands sixth in the eight-team Central, one point ahead of both Chicago and Arizona.
The Predators also played the front half of back-to-back games on Saturday, but came up on the short end of a 6-4 loss to Winnipeg at Canada Life Centre.
The game marked the first road contest of the season for Nashville, which began the year with a 1-3-0 record in four games at Bridgestone Arena.
Nashville scored just eight goals in those four home games, but managed to tally half that total Saturday in Winnipeg. Thomas Novak and Nick Cousins each had three-point nights for the Preds and Juuse Saros stopped 23 of 29 shots on the night.
Saros has started all five games to start the season, so Connor Ingram could get the nod on Sunday. If the 24-year-old Ingram plays, it would mark his NHL debut. The Saskatoon, Saskachewan native was a third-round pick of the Predators in the 2016 NHL Draft (88th overall) and was outstanding with the AHL's Milwaukee Admirals in 33 games two years ago, posting a 1.92 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage.
Former Wild forward Mikael Granlund leads Nashville with four points.
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