Ducks at Wild
The Minnesota Wild are putting up goals and wins at a rapid pace, as the highest-scoring team in the Western Conference resides one victory shy of last season's 82-game total. Coach Bruce Boudreau's current team looks to even that bar in its 56th contest of the season on Tuesday when it vies for a season sweep of his former club, the Anaheim Ducks, at Xcel Energy Center.
Veteran forward Jason Pominville earned NHL First Star of the Week honors on Monday, one day after extending his point streak to five games (two goals, seven assists) by setting up a pair of tallies in a 6-3 victory over Detroit. "It was a good week for me personally and for the team ... it's been fun so far, so we've got to keep it going," said the 34-year-old, who also notched an assist in both the Wild's 2-1 victory over Anaheim on Jan. 8 and their 5-3 triumph over the Ducks two weeks later. While Minnesota is 4-0-1 in its last five and 26-4-3 since the start of December, Anaheim isn't experiencing much love in February. Captain Ryan Getzlaf scored a goal and set up two others in Sunday's 6-4 setback to Washington, dropping the Ducks to 1-3-1 heading into the finale of their six-game road trip.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, Prime (Anaheim), FSN Wisconsin, FSN North-Plus (Minnesota)
ABOUT THE DUCKS (29-18-10): After seeing his team shredded by one high-scoring offense, coach Randy Carlyle hinted that help could be on the way by telling the Orange County Register that injured defenseman Sami Vatanen will "be an option for us (Tuesday)." The 25-year-old Finn sustained a knee injury during Anaheim's 2-1 setback to Florida that opened the six-game trek on Feb. 3, but took part in drills Monday and is likely to push either Shea Theodore or Josh Manson into a healthy scratch. Vatanen struggled in his last encounter with Minnesota, as a turnover led directly to Jason Zucker's goal in the third period en route to being saddled with a season-worst minus-4 rating in the game.
ABOUT THE WILD (37-12-6): Nino Niederreiter scored his team-leading 19th goal on Sunday to extend his point streak to four games (four goals, two assists) while fellow forward Charlie Coyle has also collected six points (one goal, five assists) in his last four contests. Minnesota's second-ranked offense is made all the more potent by Devan Dubnyk, who rebounded from a tough outing out of the All-Star break to post a .930 save percentage during his four-game winning streak. The 30-year-old, who was in net for both encounters against Anaheim last month, owns a sizzling 24-3-2 mark since Nov. 23 and leads the league in wins (31), goals-against average (1.99) and save percentage (.933).
OVERTIME
1. Minnesota has scored at least five goals in 12 of its last 28 games.
2. Anaheim G John Gibson owns a 1-3-0 mark with a 3.14 goals-against average and .898 save percentage in February after posting an 8-2-1 record with a 1.59 GAA and .946 save percentage last month.
3. The Wild recalled Fs Zack Mitchell and Alex Tuch from Iowa, placed D Jonas Brodin (finger) on injured reserve and put F Tyler Graovac on waivers Monday.