Wild Game Day number 29
Wild Record (15-11-2 32 pts)
Road Record (7-7-0)

Opponent: Edmonton Oilers (14-12-2 30 pts)
Home Record (7-4-1)

Site: Rogers Place, Edmonton, AB

Time: 8:00PM CT

TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)

Last Season Results:
12/16 Oilers 3 @ Wild 2
3/10 Wild 1 @ Oilers 4
4/2 Oilers 0 @Wild 3

Last result:
10/30 Wild 4 @ Oilers 3

Quick turnaround for the Wild once again facing the Oilers for the second time this season in Edmonton on the 2nd night of back-to-backs. The Wild overcame three one-goal deficits to prevail 4-3 back in late October, the first time the teams met. However this is different Oiler team since then as Ken Hitchcock was hired back November 20th as the new head coach replacing Todd McLellan.

The Oilers have gone 5-2-1 since the coaching change and there is definitely a new focus on overall team defense. In Hitchcock's first 3 games behind the Oiler bench, his team yielded 10 goals but have only allowed 9 in their last five.

The Wild on the other hand have been mired in a slump of their own once in their last five and only four of the past 11,falling out of the top eight in Western Conference standings in the process.

Last night's game ended with some fireworks as Matt Dumba delivered a borderline on Flames Mikael Backlund late in the contest with Alex Stalock off for the extra attacker. Backlund was slow to get off the ice and was replaced by Ryan Lomberg who immediately charged after Dumba,dropping his gloves and throwing punches to the back of Dumba's helmet as the Wild defenseman went to the ice and covered up.

For his actions Lomberg did receive the mandatory 1-game suspension and Flames coach Bill Peters will receive the $10,000 fine for having one of his players instigate a fight within the final five minutes a the game.

The hit by Dumba was deemed clean by the on-ice officials and given the situation it was Dumba pressuring the puck carrier to force the play to stay in the offensive zone as the Wild were skating with the extra attacker and the goaltender pulled.

The other issue last night was the Mark Giordano incident with Mikko Koivu, resulting in Koivu leaving the game with a leg injury. Giordano stuck his leg out tripping Koivu, which has resulted in a hearing today with the league's player safety department.

The Wild have been pretty healthy as a group through the first third of the season, but with Koivu looking to be out at least tonight, we will have to see how they proceed. If they make a call-up or dress Matt Hendricks or Nate Prosser tonight.

Wild Projected Lines (assuming Hendricks is in)
Zucker-Staal-Niederreiter
Parise-Granlund-Coyle
Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Greenway
Hendricks-Fehr-Briwn

Suter-Dumba
Brodin-Spurgeon
Seeler-Pateryn

Dubnyk
Stalock

It's always Hockey Day in the State of Hockey!

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