Game Preview #17: New Jersey Devils vs Minnesota Wild

The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils (8-5-3) vs the Minnesota Wild (11-6-1)

SB Nation Blog: Hockey Wilderness

The Time: 7 PM ET

The Broadcast: TV - MSG+

Radio: Devils Hockey Network

Coming into Tonight:

The Devils are hot off a very big win and a nice long break. Saturday they scored four goals in the third period to take the win away from the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had a 3-1 lead going into the second intermission. They haven’t played since, which gives them a nice lengthy rest, so we should have all fresh legs on deck coming into tonight. Helpfully, the Lightning played Minnesota the very next night, so we have a recent comparison— the Wild lost 5-4 in a shootout. They have also had the last two days off, so I wouldn’t expect any tired legs from them tonight either.

Minnesota will be without Jared Spurgeon however, as he sustained a lower body injury on Saturday against the Panthers. They will however have former Devils defensemen John Merill and Dmitri Kulikov in the lineup.

Wild Lines:

Foligno - Eriksson Ek - Greenway
Fiala - Hartman - Zucarell
Kaprizov - Rask - Gaudreau
Pitlick - Sturm - Duhaime

Brodin - Duba
Merill - Goligoski
Benn - Kulikov

Kähkönen

Devils Lines:

Zacha - Hischier - Tatar
Johnsson - Mercer - Bratt
Kuokkanen - Sharangovitch - Vesey
DeLeo/Geertsen - McLeod - Zetterlund

Graves - Hamilton
Siegenthaler - Subban
Smith - Severson

Blackwood

If we could take the Lightning, and the Lightning could take the Wild, then by the usually circular logic of hockey we can expect that the Wild will beat us tonight, right?

Leave your predictions in the comments, and thanks for reading!