Canucks at Wild
After stumbling through the second half of November by losing six of seven contests, the Minnesota Wild are riding a six-game point streak in December entering Tuesday night's matchup against the visiting Vancouver Canucks. The Wild have permitted only three regulation goals and five overall while registering three shutouts during the 4-0-2 run to start this month.
Minnesota owns a 10-3-1 record at home and now plays six of its next seven games at Xcel Energy Center. "I think that we should be coming home with a little bit of momentum but now we really have to put our foot on the gas," Wild coach Mike Yeo said. Vancouver had a modest two-game winning streak halted in a deceptive 4-0 loss at Chicago on Sunday in the opener of a six-game road trip. The Canucks have dropped eight of their last nine (1-5-3) away from home, but the one victory was a 3-2 decision at Minnesota on Nov. 25.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, RSNP (Vancouver), FSN North Plus (Minnesota)
ABOUT THE CANUCKS (11-12-8): While the Sedin twins have combined for 62 points, Vancouver has a slew of players mired in major offensive swoons - with sixth-leading scorer Alexandre Burrows among the guilty parties with a 10-game point drought. Forward Sven Baertschi has failed to hit the scoresheet in his past 11 contests while Bo Horvat, another first-round draft pick and a 13-goal scorer as a rookie last season, has gone 19 games without tallying. Chris Higgins is stuck in a 14-game goalless rut and has managed only one assist in that span.
ABOUT THE WILD (15-7-6): Darcy Kuemper, set to make his fourth consecutive start in place of Devan Dubnyk, is coming off a 2-0 shutout of San Jose after dropping back-to-back 2-1 decisions in overtime. "(He) looks very comfortable in there, looks very confident in there and obviously has a lot of the right habits from a lot of the things he's been doing in practice," Yeo said of Kuemper, who is expected to be backed up by Dubnyk on Tuesday. Yeo juggled his lines at practice, moving struggling Jason Zucker alongside captain Mikko Koivu and leading goal scorer Thomas Vanek.
OVERTIME
1. The Wild are 1-for-21 on the power play over the past eight games.
2. Vancouver has killed off 18-of-20 short-handed situations in six games this month.
3. Minnesota had registered a league-high six shutouts.