The NHL’s top road team faces a club finally starting to make some noise on home ice when the Minnesota Wild visit the Vancouver Canucks on Friday.
Minnesota is 22-9-3 in away games this season, with an NHL-leading 47 road points. This success has kept the Wild in third place in the Central Division as they try to keep pace with the second-place Dallas Stars while also fending off the fourth-ranked Colorado Avalanche.
The Canucks have struggled to an underwhelming 12-10-7 home record, but the club has collected points in each of its last five games (4-0-1) in Vancouver. Six of the Canucks’ next seven games are at home, and better results in their building could do wonders for Vancouver’s chances of reaching the playoffs.
Quinn Hughes’ health, however, could be the biggest hurdle between the Canucks and the postseason. Hughes is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury that kept the star defenseman out of the lineup in Wednesday’s 3-2 home win over the Anaheim Ducks.
Without their team leader in points, the Canucks got offense from some unlikely sources against Anaheim. Teddy Blueger ended a 25-game scoring drought with a second-period marker, and defenseman Carson Soucy’s third goal of the season stood up as the game-winner.
“Depth scoring is just always important, especially when you’re trying to make a run here,” Soucy said. “I think just as a group, we did a good job creating … but it’s always nice when you can kind of help the team get a win this late in the season.”
Short-handed lineups are nothing new for the Wild, as Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Jonas Brodin will remain on injured reserve for the foreseeable future. Minnesota is 7-5-0 in the 12 games since Kaprizov underwent surgery for an unspecified lower-body injury, but missing so many key players has undoubtedly made things more of a grind.
Tuesday’s 4-3 road win over the Seattle Kraken was a prime example, as Seattle outshot the Wild by a lopsided 36-20 margin. Minnesota built a 4-1 lead midway through the second period but had to hang on to escape with two points.
“It was a great 30 minutes and then a bad 30 minutes … We were throwing pucks away a little bit too much and just giving (the Kraken) momentum coming back at us,” said forward Mats Zuccarello, who had a goal and an assist. “It’s hard to play that way, so that’s something I think we’ve got to do better.”
Filip Gustavsson made 33 saves on Tuesday, improving to 6-3-0 with a 2.57 goals against average over his last nine games. The Swedish netminder will likely be back in Minnesota’s net on Friday.
Kevin Lankinen is Vancouver’s probable starting goaltender, as Thatcher Demko remains sidelined with a lower-body injury.
The Canucks’ strong penalty-kill unit has been particularly hot lately, going 23-for-24 over their last 10 games. Vancouver has a sizeable edge in this category, while the Wild’s 70.3 penalty-kill percentage is among the worst in the NHL.
Minnesota is 11-1-0 in its last 12 matchups with Vancouver, dating back to the 2019-20 season. This recent dominance extended into this season, when the Wild recorded a 3-2 overtime win over the Canucks on Dec. 3.
