The Minnesota Wild’s website and the Detroit Red Wings website’s Jonathan Mills posted additional game previews of tonight’s game between the Wild and Red Wings (8 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Minnesota/FanDuel SportsNet Wisconsin).
I posted a game preview overnight, and the Wild’s preview is very statistic-y, so we’ll go with Mills’ game preview, which notes that the Red Wings are hungry for a series split after Saturday’s 4-3 OT loss:
“They play a fast game,” Erik Gustafsson said about the Wild. “They have some speed up front, so we got to be ready from the puck drop. I think we were [on Saturday], but we were good for 40 minutes. Now, we got to play for 60.”
In both games of its back-to-back set this past weekend, including Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to Minnesota and Sunday’s 5-4 OT victory over the Anaheim Ducks, Detroit surrendered two-goal leads late in the third period.
According to Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan, there are several strategies when approaching how to defend late-game, 6-on-5 situations compared to a standard 5-on-4 penalty kill.
“They’re coming right out,” McLellan said about 6-on-5 scenarios. “You have no time, no space. You have to understand there’s a difference there. Positionally, there’s a few different things. They can usually outnumber you near the net, or at or around the net, and then from a structure perspective. From our end, there’s a few things that we should do differently. We met about them again [on Monday]. We’ll try and be much better in those situations.”
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The Wild, who haven’t played since Saturday, remain in third place in the Western Conference’s Central Division. Winners in six of its past eight games, Minnesota also enters Tuesday with a 13-12-1 record on home ice this season.
“You put [Kirill] Kaprizov and a couple of their other injured players back into their lineup, that’s a real solid, contending team,” McLellan said. “They check well and don’t give you very much. I think they’re very well-coached and organized. They can be physical and skilled, but they’re really good in the offensive zone – of spreading things out and then attacking the net.”
Continued with injury updates…
