The Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers, two of the best teams in the National Hockey League, will play each other on Wednesday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
Among the top teams in their respective divisions are the Panthers (19-11-2 in the Atlantic Division) and the Wild (20-7-4 in the Central Division).
The game will air on TNT at 9:30 p.m. ET, and you can watch it live on DirecTV Stream (FREE trial and discount) and Sling TV (discount).
This season’s second meeting between these teams will take place on Wednesday. The Wild prevailed 5-1 in the last meeting.
The Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Wild 3-2 at home on Sunday night, their most recent defeat.
For Vegas, Victor Olofsson scored two goals in his second game of the season.
One day after scoring two goals in a victory over Philadelphia, Kirill Kaprizov scored twice for Minnesota. He now shares the league’s most goals (22) with Leon Draisaitl of Edmonton. In his first game of the season, Jesper Wallstedt recorded 24 saves.
With Filip Gustavsson out with a minor injury and Marc-Andre Fleury starting in goal on Saturday, Minnesota brought up Wallstedt from its AHL club for his fourth career start. The Wild do not think Gustavsson’s injury is serious.
For the Wild, Kaprizov has recorded 25 assists and 22 goals. In the past ten games, Mats Zuccarello has two goals and seven assists.
Gustavsson has a 2.27 goals-against average for the Wild and is 14-5-3.
In their most recent game, Florida defeated the Edmonton Oilers 6-5 in a repeat of the Stanley Cup final on Monday.
In addition to Niko Mikkola, Sam Reinhart, Jesper Boqvist, Matthew Tkachuk, and Gustav Forsling scoring goals for the Panthers, Carter Verhaeghe scored the game-winning goal in the third period. Despite standout forward Aleksander Barkov missing his second straight game due to sickness, Florida prevailed. 25 shots were stopped by Sergei Bobrovsky.
On Monday, December 16, 2024, in Edmonton, Alberta, Florida Panthers players Sam Bennett (9) and Carter Verhaeghe (right) celebrate a goal against the Edmonton Oilers during the third period of an NHL hockey game. (The Canadian Press/Jason Franson via AP)AP
Reinhart has 20 goals and 21 assists for the Panthers while Tkachuk has scored six goals and added 10 assists over the past 10 games.
Sergei Bobrovsky has started 21 games in net for the Panthers, and is 14-6-1. He has a 2.97 goals-against average.
Florida is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games.
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