Wild vs Panthers: Gamethread

The Wild look to continue on the winning path. Some players come in red hot - namely Mikael Granlund, who drops passes on a dime better than Kirk Cousins, and Matt Dumba, whose stick might as well be the Sword Excalibur for vanquishing the enemies one after another.

The defensive pairs were returned to normal (their early season status) and the Wild protected Devan Dubnyk enough for him to get the win allowing just a single goal.

A win is great and all, but two wins is better. They can't get three wins in a row without getting two. The Panthers and Jonathan Huberdeau are in town. Florida is dead last in the FlorthEast (Atlantic) division with 29 points. Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo hates the Wild. Minnesota has scored 107 goals against Luongo, and he's posted his second worst save percentage (.904) of his career versus the Wild.

The Panthers come in having last played Tuesday night in a 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Fighting Berube's.

The Wild walloped the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, and were perfect on special teams. Five-on-five scoring even pitched it, which needed to get some confidence. Nino Niederreiter provided the spark, and the team responded well in Mikko Koivu's absence.

Speaking of the Kaptain, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Koivu too part in morning skate, but he will not play tonight. The more Charlie Coyle can play the way he did the other night, the Wild may just stay above water without him.

Here are your lines:

MINNESOTA WILD

Mikael Granlund - Eric Staal - Jason Zucker

Zach Parise - Charlie Coyle - Nino Niederreiter

Jordan Greenway - Joel Eriksson Ek - Luke Kunin

Marcus Foligno - Eric Fehr - J.T Brown

Ryan Suter - Matt Dumba

Jonas Brodin - Jared Spurgeon

Nick Seeler - Greg Pateryn

Devan Dubnyk

Alex Stalock

FLORIDA PANTHERS

Jonathan Huberdeau - Alexsander Barkov - Mike Hoffman

Evgenii Dadonov - Jared McCann - Anthony Greco

Dryden Hunt - Denis Malgin - Frank Valtrano

Troy Brower - Juho Lammikko - Colton Sceviour

Keith Yandle - Aaron Ekblad

Michael Matheson - Alex Petrovic

Mark Pysyk - MacKenzie Weegar

Roberto Luongo

James Reimer