Canadiens at Wild
The Minnesota Wild are a special-teams enigma, boasting one of the league's top penalty-killing units but struggling mightily on the power play. The Wild will try to to build some man-advantage success Wednesday night against a team that doesn't give up many opportunities as they host the Montreal Canadiens. Minnesota entered Tuesday ranked 29th with a 9.6-percent power-play success rate, a stark contrast to its second-ranked penalty kill.
Getting the power play untracked could prove daunting against a Canadiens team that ranks eighth in the league in penalty killing, and has been one of the most disciplined clubs in the league over the past two weeks. Montreal has allowed just 11 man-advantage opportunities in the past seven games, killing off nine of them - including the only chance Colorado had in the Canadiens' 4-3 win Monday. Montreal will be playing in its first game since learning that former captain and legend Jean Beliveau passed away on Tuesday. He was 83.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, RDS (Montreal), FS-N (Minnesota)
ABOUT THE CANADIENS (17-7-2): Montreal has been solid for most of the season, but is dealing with a lingering issue that could soon catch up with it: being outscored in the opening period. The Canadiens have been fortunate in 2014-15, scoring first in only nine of their opening 26 games - and going on to win all nine of those games, while prevailing eight times when giving up the first goal. But the trend is a disturbing one for Montreal, which has been outscored by an absurd 22-8 margin in the opening period this season.
ABOUT THE WILD (13-9-1): Young forward Nino Niederreiter came into the season with a singular focus: score more goals than he did last season. He's well on his way to doing just that, entering Wednesday night's game with a team-best 11 goals - just three off his tally from all of 2013-14. "He's not scoring those goals by accident," coach Mike Yeo told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "It's not like he's involved in one chance a game; he's involved in several in different scenarios where he's around the net, pucks are around the net, and he's creating it."
OVERTIME
1. Montreal prevailed 4-1 in the teams' previous meeting Nov. 8.
2. Niederreiter has two goals in seven career games versus the Canadiens.
3. Minnesota is 10-3-0 when scoring first.