The Minnesota Wild will target their fourth win in a row when they host the Nashville Predators on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
The Wild are coming off a 5-3 win on home ice over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, which followed victories on the road over the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes. Now, Minnesota is looking for its first four-game winning streak since Dec. 19-27.
Marcus Johansson scored two goals in Minnesota’s most recent win against the Capitals. Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno each finished with a goal and an assist.
Foligno said he and his teammates need to stay focused in order to keep picking up points.
“A really big, important game Thursday,” Foligno said. “We know what’s at stake.”
Despite losing two games in a row and three of its past four, Nashville remains ahead of the Wild in the Central Division standings. Both teams have played the same number of games, and the Predators have 51 points while Minnesota has 47.
Nashville forward Cole Smith will play his first game since signing a two-year, $2 million contract extension. The 28-year-old Smith, who was born in Brainerd, Minn., has tallied 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) and 43 penalty minutes in 46 games this season.
“He’s a really big part of our team,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said of Smith. “I’m really happy for him. He deserves it. It’s a great story, and hopefully it’s just a step of many more coming up.”
The Predators will likely turn to Juuse Saros in net on Thursday.
Saros is 18-18-1 with a 2.94 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage this season. In nine career games against Minnesota, he is 6-3-0 with a 2.26 GAA and a .930 save percentage.
The Wild expect to counter with Filip Gustavsson between the pipes.
Gustavsson has faced the Predators three times in his career. He is 2-0-1 with a 2.63 GAA and a .905 save percentage in those contests.
Eriksson Ek will look to stay hot against Nashville. He notched his team-leading 20th goal on Tuesday, which marked the third season in a row that he has reached the 20-goal plateau.
Foligno said the Wild owe much of their success to Eriksson Ek.
“He does it all,” Foligno said. “He’s one of our best, if not our best, players every night, and he leads by example.”
Eriksson Ek said reaching 20 goals was nice, but it was not his main priority.
“I’m happy to do that,” he said. “(I’m) just trying still to find ways to score more and then be a more consistent player.”
This will be the second of four regular-season meetings between the teams. Minnesota won the first matchup 6-1 on Nov. 30 in Nashville.
Connor Dewar had three goals and an assist in that game for the Wild. Kirill Kaprizov added a goal and an assist, and Gustavsson turned aside 26 of 27 shots.
Juuso Parssinen scored the lone goal for the Predators in the first matchup against Minnesota. Saros gave up four goals on 15 shots before he was replaced in net by Kevin Lankinen, who stopped 14 of 16 shots.
–Field Level Media