The Wild return home for the back end of the home and home with Vegas tonight, looking to turn the tables on the Golden Knights. It was not the performance that they Wild had hoped for in Vegas on Saturday night as they were outplayed for much of the game en route to the 4-1 defeat.

Give full credit the Vegas as they came ready to play and despite the Wild opening the scoring, that was all that they would get. Laurent Brossoit was good in the Vegas net and the Golden Knights fired 43 shots on the Wild net to just 30 from Minnesota, with a paltry four in the third period!

The bigger news was the loss of Mason Shaw, who left the game in obvious discomfort adfter he caught his skate in the ice awkwardly. It was confirmed that Shaw suffered yet another torn ACL his fourth since he was drafted by the Wild in the fourth round of the 2017 NHL draft.

That is devastating to Shaw who has worked his way back from the previous three knee surgeries to be a key depth forward for the Wild and valuable penalty killer. Shaw is an RFA at the end of the season, and I would expect Bill Guerin to offer him a new deal despite the injury, as he has certainly earned that.

Tonight Sam Steel slots back in and moves up to play with Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Hartman while Marcus Foligno slots back in on Freddy Gaudreau's line with Oscar Sundqvist. Barndon Duhaime moves to the wing vacated by Shaw with Connor Dewar and Ryan Reaves.

Filip Gustavsson gets the start tonight as the Wild look to punch their ticket to the playoffs with a win. Expect a much better Wild effort as they try to draw back within two points of the Western Conference leading Golden Knights.

It's always Hockey Day in The STate of Hockey!

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