Wild at Bruins
The Boston Bruins have been a disaster on their home ice and the Minnesota Wild are struggling mightily to win on the road. One of those trends will come to an end - at least briefly - when the Bruins continue their season-high five-game homestand on Wednesday night against Minnesota.
The Bruins turned in another clunker at TD Garden with a 5-4 setback to San Jose on Tuesday night to drop to 2-6-1 at home. Equally as troubling is the fact that Boston has surrendered at least five goals in five of those defeats. "If we're going to start putting a few wins together we have to have everyone going every night," Bruins forward Brad Marchand told reporters. "We can't have any passengers at all. If we have one then it's enough to cost us a game and right now we have way too many." The Wild won their first two road games of the season but have since dropped six of seven (1-3-3) away from home.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FSN North (Minnesota), NESN (Boston)
ABOUT THE WILD (10-4-3): A flu bug is going through Minnesota's locker room, forcing forward Ryan Carter to miss Wednesday's practice, but forward Erik Haula is expected back in the lineup after sitting out Tuesday's 4-3 loss at Pittsburgh. “I don’t know what’s going on," Wild coach Mike Yeo, whose team dealt with mumps and a virus a year ago, told reporters. "It’s always this time of year. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know how we can do something different in November to prevent this, but it is what it is." Forward Jason Pominville is riding a career high-tying 17-game goalless drought.
ABOUT THE BRUINS (8-8-1): Boston coach Claude Julien bristled at talk that his message is getting lost on the players, telling reporters: "I can tell you that’s not the case. I really feel good about the response I’m getting from players as far as believing. Right now we just have to fix what we do out there, and that’s the main thing." Defenseman Kevin Miller exited Tuesday's game with to an upper-body injury that caused him to miss Wednesday's practice. Center Ryan Spooner, who has 11 points in 17 games, was benched in the third period Tuesday after his penalty led to a goal.
OVERTIME
1. The Wild (74.4 percent) and Bruins (70.8) own the league's two worst penalty-killing units.
2. Boston C Patrice Bergeron has three goals and three assists in a five-game point string.
3. Wild G Devan Dubynk has gone 54 starts without consecutive regulation losses since joining the Wild.