This season, the Wild lost 4-1 in Colorado, lost in a shootout to Vegas and plays Chicago in game three.
Minnesota can only hope it has a similar final result; the Wild won 5-2 at United Center to give the team its first win of the season. Of course, it hopes it comes at a more affordable cost. The team lost Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter for multiple weeks because of leg injuries and Marcus Foligno fractured his cheek bone in a fight against the Blackhawks' John Hayden.
"We had a good comeback win. It was pretty good," Coyle said with a wry smile, thinking back to last season. "It wasn't ideal in some other situations, but we battled back and I think we had eight or nine forwards going."
The Wild won that game playing just eight forwards for a bulk of the second half of that game. With Foligno, Niederreiter and Coyle all in the dressing room, and Zach Parise and Mikael Granlund out of the lineup because of injuries, the Wild scored four goals in a span of seven minutes in the third period, turning a 1-1 game into a 5-1 lead.
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"It certainly was a good feeling even though we lost three players during the course of that game," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "There are very much similarities of losing the first game, losing the second game in a shootout, and playing Chicago in the third game. Hopefully we can get the same result in the third game this season as we did last season. Without the injuries."
Minnesota enters play on Thursday at full strength from a health perspective, but eager to get things going offensively. The Wild has just two goals through two games and despite a red-hot start from goaltender Devan Dubnyk, has just one point to show for its work.
"We have to shoot the puck. One of the things in the first two games is we're trying to see the color of the goalie's eyes before we shot it," Boudreau said. "Once we get in the shooting area we have to shoot and we have to go to the net and we have to make it difficult for the defensemen to contain us. That's how we're going to score goals. "
Minnesota has had to sit on its start for the past four days with the schedule hitting pause since Saturday night's home opener against the Vegas Golden Knights, a game Minnesota lost 2-1 in a shootout.
"When you haven't won a game in 10 days there is a little bit of urgency. It's not like a panic urgency. It's just that we want to be on the right side of the score and feeling good about ourselves," Boudreau said. "We have that opportunity to rectify it tonight even though we're playing a team that's historically given us a lot of trouble and has had a pretty good start themselves."
JT Brown is expected to make his Wild debut on Thursday. He was off the ice early following morning skate while Matt Hendricks remained on late.
"I want to see energy," Boudreau said. "He's a good skater. So getting in on the forecheck and creating turnovers. And obviously he has to play solid defensively."
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Jason Zucker - Eric Staal - Joel Eriksson Ek
Zach Parise - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund
Nino Niederreiter - Jordan Greenway - Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno - Eric Fehr - J.T. Brown
Ryan Suter - Matt Dumba
Jonas Brodin - Jared Spurgeon
Nick Seeler - Greg Pateryn
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
BLACKHAWKS
Alex DeBrincat - Jonathan Toews - Dominik Kahun
Brandon Saad - Nick Schmaltz - Patrick Kane
Chris Kunitz - Artem Anisimov - Alexandre Fortin
John Hayden - Marcus Kruger - David Kampf
Duncan Keith - Henri Jokiharju
Erik Gustafsson - Brent Seabrook
Brandon Manning - Jan Rutta
Cam Ward
Anton Forsberg
