Carolina Hurricanes vs. Minnesota Wild: Lineups and Game Discussion

Fresh off of a disappointing third period against the Tampa Bay Lightning wherein a 3-2 lead turned into a 6-3 loss, the Carolina Hurricanes will look to right their wrongs tonight against the Minnesota Wild at PNC Arena.

Tonight’s inter-conference matchup will have some extra flavor as both players involved in the January 17 trade between Carolina and Minnesota will be in the lineup - Nino Niederreiter and Victor Rask.

The trade has been outstanding for Carolina and less-than-outstanding for Minnesota. Niederreiter has 12 goals and 24 points over his last 26 games and has been a huge addition to the Hurricanes’ top-six. Meanwhile, Rask has all of two total points in 16 games with the Wild while battling injuries, as well.

Despite what seemed like thousands of injury scares against the Bolts on Thursday, the Hurricanes are expected to ice their normal, healthy lineup against the Wild. Petr Mrazek (19-13-3, .909 save percentage) is expected to get the start. The Czech goalie has won seven of his last eight starts and has .944 save percentage over that span.

Here’s how the Canes should lineup:

Nino Niederreiter - Sebastian Aho - Justin Williams
Andrei Svechnikov - Jordan Staal - Teuvo Teravainen
Micheal Ferland - Lucas Wallmark - Jordan Martinook
Warren Foegele - Greg McKegg - Brock McGinn

Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton
Brett Pesce - Justin Faulk
Calvin de Haan - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Petr Mrazek
Curtis McElhinney

Injuries and scratches: Saku Meanalanen (healthy)

The Wild are in the midst of a pretty rough skid, losing five of their last seven games and seven of their last ten, but they are coming off of a 2-1 win in Washington last night.

While the trade with Carolina has yet to produce much of anything positive for them, their trade with the Boston Bruins, in which they acquired forward Ryan Donato, has looked great thus far. Donato leads all rookies in points since being acquired by the team at the trade deadline.

On the back end of a back-to-back, it’ll be Devan Dubnyk (29-25-6, .912 save percentage) in net, again, for the Wild. The veteran goalie had a relatively quiet night against the Caps on Friday, facing just 22 shots and stopping 21 of them. Here’s how they lined up in their win last night in the nation’s capital:

Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Kevin Fiala
Ryan Donato - Luke Kunin - Jordan Greenway
Jason Zucker - Victor Rask - Matt Read
Marcus Foligno - Eric Fehr - J.T. Brown

Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Brad Hunt
Anthony Bitetto - Greg Pateryn

Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock

Also, hello to Adam Webster, aka our very own webbo26, who made one heck of a trip to Raleigh to watch this weekend’s big back-to-back!