Wild Warmup: Minnesota at Dallas

The essentials

DALLAS -- The Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars face off for the first time this season at American Airlines Center on Friday night.
The Wild enters off its second victory of the regular season, a 2-1 win against the Arizona Coyotes in St. Paul on Tuesday. Mikael Granlund and Eric Staal scored goals for Minnesota, with Staal's tally 6:18 into the third period serving as the game winner. Goaltender Devan Dubnyk made 31 saves.
The win snapped a brief two-game skid for Minnesota, which had lost 4-2 in Nashville the night before.
Dallas has also been off since Tuesday, when it lost 3-0 against the New Jersey Devils in Newark. The loss capped a quick back-to-back road set against Eastern foes. The Stars lost 4-1 to the Ottawa Senators on Monday night.

The Stars opened the season with a four-game homestand, winning three of those four contests (the lone loss was a 7-4 defeat at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 9). The game Friday marks the beginning of a three-game stretch of games at home for Dallas, a span that continues next week against Los Angeles and Anaheim.

The lineup

• The Wild will have the services of captain Mikko Koivu after he missed the game against Arizona to be with his wife, Helena, for the birth of the couple's third child, a son they named Oskar. He practiced with the team at TRIA Rink at Treasure Island Center on Thursday prior to the team's flight to Dallas.

• Marcus Foligno's status for Friday is less certain. The forward was under the weather on Thursday and did not practice with the team. He made the trip south with the team, however. Defenseman Nate Prosser skated in his place on the fourth line.
• Matt Read,
called up
from Iowa of the American Hockey League on Wednesday, skated next to Jason Zucker and Eric Staal on the top line at practice and is expected to at least begin the game there on Friday.
• Forward Matt Hendricks, who sustained a lower-body injury on Tuesday, could miss up to three weeks with the injury.

• Forward Joel Eriksson Ek remains out, and Wild coach Bruce Boudreau indicated Thursday that he will not play either game this weekend. The team placed Eriksson Ek on injured reserve retroactively as a procedural move. He will be eligible to return from IR as soon as he is ready to play.

Double dip

The Wild will begin its second of 15 sets of back-to-backs this season against the Stars Friday at American Airlines Center. It's Minnesota's second set of back-to-backs in the same week as part of playing four games in six nights (10/15-10/20). The Wild 0-1-0 in the first night of back-to-backs and 1-0-0 in the second this season.
The Wild went 13-13-4 in its 15 sets of back-to-back games last season. Minnesota went 8-6-1 in the first game, 5-7-3 in the second, including two sweeps. The Wild also went 6-2-1 against teams playing their second game of a back-to-back.

Star gazing

All-Time Wild Record: 29-29-12 (20-10-4 at Xcel Energy Center, 9-19-8 at Dallas)
2017-18: Minnesota split the season series against Dallas, 2-2-0…The Wild earned a 4-2 win in the first game at Xcel Energy Center (12/27), fell 6-1 in the second game at American Airlines Center (2/3), won 5-2 in the third game in Saint Paul (3/29) and dropped the final game in Dallas, 4-1 (3/31)…RW Mikael Granlund led the Wild with seven points (2-5=7)…LW Jason Zucker tallied five points (3-2=5)…D Matt Dumba recorded four points (1-3=4)…LW Zach Parise (3-0=3) and D Ryan Suter (0-3=3) collected three points each…G Alex Stalock went 1-1-0 with a 3.60 GAA and a .891 SV% in two starts…G Devan Dubnyk went 1-1-0 with a 3.03 GAA and a .907 SV% in three games (two starts)…C Tyler Seguin led the Stars with eight points (3-5=8)…LW Jamie Benn had five points (2-3=5)…D John Klingberg (1-2=3), RW Alexander Radulov (1-2=3) and C Devin Shore (1-2=3) collected three points apiece…G Ben Bishop recorded the loss, stopping 27-of-30 shots in the first meeting…G Kari Lehtonen went 2-1-0 with a 2.03 GAA and a .930 SV% in three starts.

WILD LEADERS: C Mikko Koivu leads Minnesota with 34 points (13-21=34) in 44 contests against Dallas…Parise has 29 points (14-15=29) in 29 games…Granlund owns 21 points (7-14=21) in 23 matches…Suter has 21 points (4-17=21) in 51 games…C Eric Staal owns 19 points (12-7=19) in 23 contests…C Charlie Coyle has 14 points (3-11=14) in 24 games.
WILD GOALIES: Dubnyk is 7-8-2 with a 2.84 GAA, a .907 SV% and one shutout in 18 games (16 starts) vs. the Stars…Stalock is 4-3-0 with a 3.11 GAA and a .900 SV% in seven starts.
STARS LEADERS: Benn leads Dallas with 32 points (13-19=32) in 35 contests against Minnesota…Seguin owns 29 points (10-19=29) in 24 games…Klingberg has 14 points (5-9=14) in 17 games…C Jason Spezza owns 14 points (4-10=14) in 25 contests.
STARS GOALIES: Bishop is 2-3-0 with a 1.95 GAA and a .928 SV% in six games (five starts) vs. the Wild…G Anton Khudobin is 1-2-0 with a 3.03 GAA and a .883 SV% in three starts.

Did you know?

Minnesota is 11-4-4 in its last 19 games against Dallas…Minnesota has points in seven of the last 10 games at American Airlines Center (5-3-2).