The Golden Knights’ home opener didn’t go as expected, but the 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers is just one out of 82 games in the regular season. It may have left a sour taste in the mouth, but today is a new day. That being said, Minnesota will be playing with similar intensity after taking a 4-1 loss in Colorado Thursday night.
Interestingly, the Knights have yet to come away with a win when facing this Wild team, which makes tonight’s contest that much more challenging. Malcolm Subban was the starting netminder in two of last year’s three contests, but the Wild outscored the Knights 13-6.
Minnesota netminder Devan Dubnyk is coming off a strong performance in which he stopped 36 of 38 shots, whereas Marc-Andre Fleury will look to bounce back after giving up five goals on just 16 shots.
Minnesota’s Zach Parise and Vegas’ Jonathan Marchessault and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare are the only players from their respective teams who have lit the lamp this season. Vegas’ shot leaders were Marchessault (4), Reilly Smith (3) and Paul Stastny (3), while Brayden McNabb (21:46), Colin Miller (21:31) and William Karlsson (20:19) led the team in ice time.
For the Wild, Parise (4), Eric Staal (3) and Matt Dumba (3) led the team in shots, while Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon led all players on both the Wild and Knights with 25:21 and 24:05 of ice time, respectively.
With Alex Tuch and Cody Eakin stuck on the sidelines, here are the projected lineups for tonight’s matchup:
Golden Knights
Marchessault — Karlsson — Smith
Max Pacioretty — Stastny — Erik Haula
Tomas Nosek — Oscar Lindberg — Ryan Carpenter
William Carrier — Bellemare — Ryan Reaves
McNabb — Miller
Shea Theodore — Deryk Engelland
Jon Merrill — Nick Holden
Fleury
Subban
Minnesota Wild
Jason Zucker — Staal — Mikael Granlund
Parise— Mikko Koivu — Nino Niederreiter
Joel Eriksson Ek — Jordan Greenway — Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno — Matt Hendricks— Eric Fehr
Suter — Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin — Matt Dumba
Nick Seeler — Greg Pateryn
Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
For those of you not attending the Golden Knights’ official watch party, come discuss the game with us!