Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. Nashville

The Essentials

The Opponent

The Nashville Predators come to Minnesota on the tail end of a five-game road trip that began on Jan. 14 in Colorado with a swing through western Canada afterward. The Predators are 3-1-0 on the trip so far, including back-to-back wins over Calgary and Edmonton on Thursday and Friday. Ryan Johansen leads the Predators with 32 points while James Neal has a team-high 15 goals. Nashville has seven players with at least 21 points this season.

Connections

• Wild defenseman Ryan Suter was the seventh overall pick by Nashville in the 2003 NHL Draft. He scored 238 points in 542 games for the Predators from 2005-12.
• Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk played in two games for Nashville in 2014.
• Predators assistant coach Phil Housley is a native of South St. Paul and is the former head coach at Stillwater Area High School.

Plus Posse

Wild players own five of the top six spots in NHL plus/minus rating this season: Ryan Suter (plus-30) leads the NHL, Jared Spurgeon (plus-28) is second, Jason Zucker (plus-27) is third, Mikael Granlund (plus-25) is T-4th and Mikko Koivu (plus-24) is sixth.

At the Rink

Minnesota, coming off a 5-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday night, had a limited morning skate Sunday.
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Nino Niederreiter - Eric Staal - Charlie Coyle
Mikael Granlund - Mikko Koivu - Jason Zucker
Zach Parise - Erik Haula - Jason Pominville
Chris Stewart - Tyler Graovac - Jordan Schroeder
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella - Matt Dumba
Mike Reilly - Christian Folin
Darcy Kuemper
Devan Dubnyk
PREDATORS
Filip Forsberg - Ryan Johansen - Viktor Arvidsson
Calle Jarnkrok - Mike Ribeiro - James Neal
Austin Watson - Mike Fisher - Craig Smith
Cody McLeod - Derek Grant - Harry Zolnierczyk
Mattias Ekholm - P.K. Subban
Matt Irwin - Ryan Ellis
Anthony Bitetto - Yannick Weber
Pekka Rinne
Juuse Saros