Wild at Stars
Two teams who have snapped frustrating losing streaks look to keep moving forward as the Minnesota Wild visit the Dallas Stars on Saturday afternoon. The Stars, who had gone winless (0-5-2) in seven games before knocking off Arizona and Los Angeles in succession, will try to turn things around at home, where they are 1-3-4. Minnesota scored a total of three goals in four straight losses before beating Buffalo 6-3 on Thursday behind Nino Niederreiter’s first career hat trick.
Wild coach Mike Yeo shuffled his forward lines for Thursday’s game, and that helped ignite an offense which sputtered without leading scorer Zach Parise (concussion) over the previous three contests. Dallas is in the bottom five of the league in goals against but posted its first shutout of the season Thursday, a 2-0 triumph at Los Angeles. Thomas Vanek scored his only goal of the season to help Minnesota beat the Stars 4-1 on Nov. 1.
TV: 2 p.m. ET, FSN North, FSN Wisconsin (Minnesota), FSN Southwest (Dallas)
ABOUT THE WILD (8-7-0): Minnesota must show its depth on defense with top-four blue-liners Marco Scandella and Jonas Brodin both expected to miss a second straight game due to illness. Captain Mikko Koivu centered a line that included Jason Pominville and Jason Zuckerm while Mikael Granlund played between Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle against Buffalo on Thursday as the Wild produced 39 shots on goal. Darcy Kuemper was pulled after giving up two goals on as many shots Thursday, but Niklas Backstrom stopped 25-of-26 in relief for his second win.
ABOUT THE STARS (6-6-4): Struggling right wing Ales Hemsky was a healthy scratch Thursday after recording only one point - an assist - in the first 15 games. The 31-year-old Czech could get back in the lineup as Patrick Eaves suffered a lower-body injury against Los Angeles. Tyler Seguin, who will play in his 300th career game Saturday, has scored five goals and added two assists in his last four contests to stay among the league leaders with 22 points.
OVERTIME
1. The Wild registered two power-play goals against Dallas earlier this month – half of their total for the season.
2. Dallas LW Erik Cole is one point shy of 500 for his career after notching a goal in the 4-3 victory at Arizona on Tuesday.
3. Minnesota C Ryan Carter, who was a late free-agent signing this offseason, has recorded two goals and eight points with a plus-4 rating in 14 games.