Minnesota Wild (15-12-1) @ Anaheim Ducks (16-11-3)
Honda Center @ 7:00 CST
Television: FSN
Listen live on WCCO.com, or locally at 830 AM
For the Ducks perspective, check out Battle of California
Tonight's lines:
Minnesota Wild | Anaheim Ducks |
| Veilleux - Koivu - Mittens Johnsson - Schultz Backstrom | Ryan - Getzlaf - Perry Pronger - Huskins |
Notes
- The Wild have dropped four in a row in regulation for the first time since Nov. 20-28, 2003.
- The Wild are 4th in the NHL on the power play, (24.4%), but are last in the NHL with 40 even-strength goals in 28 games.
- The Wild are 1-for-14 in those situations over the last four contests.
- Minnesota is 9-4-0 in the series since March 28, 2004
- The Ducks are just 3-for-22 over their last seven games
The Wild, let’s just say, they’re not very good right now. I really, really hope all the Wild fans in the crowd today didn’t actually spend money on plane tickets to come out here and see today’s performance.
Regardless of the reason for the Wild’s terrible effort early in this game, what’s more frightening is nobody in the locker room I interviewed would admit to it. I am not kidding you, other than Antti Miettinen, five of the six players I interviewed all felt the team’s start tonight was fine and it played well in the first and second periods.
Sure. I guess it was deceiving when the Wild was being outshot 40-20 at one point.
Questions to Answer
- Will the offense wake the hell up?
- With Brian Burke gone, is Anaheim still the evil center of hockey?
- With this battle of low-scoring teams, will defense prevail?
- Does anyone care? Really?
- Were the first 20 games a myth? Did they overachieve?