The Minnesota Wild were spanked by the Dallas Stars in Game 2 of their opening round postseason series, surrendering seven goals over the course of the 7-3 loss. The Wild and Stars are now tied at 1-1, with the series having shifted back up north to St. Paul for Games 3 and 4.
The unfortunate news is that forward Joel Eriksson Ek, who hasn’t played since suffering an injury on April 6, isn’t expected to be able to suit up tonight. Meanwhile, forward Ryan Hartman isn’t expected to be able to play either. He was also absent from Game 2 after playing the role of hero with the overtime game-winning goal in Game 1 thanks to a lower-body injury.
“Whoever is in our lineup tonight regardless we need to play better than we did in Game 2,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said, “and we’re looking forward to doing that.”
“All positions are important, clearly,” Evason said. “But when you have your arguably 1-2 center icemen out, it’s difficult, right? There’s a lot to make up there. Dallas is extremely strong down the middle and they have a lot of like we do, too, we have a lot of wingers who can play center and take faceoffs as well.
“They have a lot of people there who make it difficult for us when we don’t have two of our guys up the middle.”
The good news is that former Stars defenseman John Klingberg is slated to return to the Wild lineup; it will be his series debut after having been injured this weekend in practice.
Forwards
Kirill Kaprizov-Sam Steel-Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson-Matt Boldy-Marcus Foligno
Gus Nyquist-Frederick Gaudreau-Oskar Sundqvist
Brandon Duhaime-Connor Dewar-Ryan Reaves
Defensemen
Jake Middleton-Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin-Matt Dumba
John Klingberg-Brock Faber
Goaltenders
Filip Gustavsson
Marc-Andre Fleury
Tonight’s game will begin at 9:30 PM EST.
