Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. Seattle

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
ST. PAUL -- With its 12-game home point streak on the line, the Wild will welcome the NHL's newest team to Xcel Energy Center for the first time on Friday night when the Seattle Kraken come to the State of Hockey.
The Wild and Kraken have played twice already this season; within a three-week span at Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena back in late October and early November. Seattle and Minnesota split those two meetings, making Friday's tilt the rubber match.
Both teams come in riding winning streaks.
For Minnesota, the Wild enter off a 6-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night, the club's third consecutive victory and eighth straight earning at least a point in the standings.
Seattle has won three-in-a-row for the first time in franchise history, posting one of its more impressive victories of the season in a 3-2 win over NHL-leading Colorado on Wednesday night.
Each of those wins have come at Climate Pledge Arena, however. In coming to Minnesota, the Kraken will play a Wild team that hasn't lost in regulation in downtown St. Paul since March 13, going 11-0-1 during that span.
In four home games this month, the Wild has scored 22 goals and while a postseason bid has already been wrapped up, Minnesota's quest for home-ice in a first-round matchup with the St. Louis Blues -- a fate that was sealed Thursday night -- is still at stake.
For an hour or so Thursday, the Wild took a two-point lead over St. Louis for second place in the Central Division and the edge for home contests in Games 1 and 2, and a potential Game 7.
But the Blues responded to the Wild victory with a 3-1 win of their own in San Jose. Minnesota holds the second spot currently because it has a game in hand, an advantage that will disappear, for 24 hours at least, with the game on Friday night in St. Paul.
"We love it here. We talked about our fans all year from Day 1 we talked about our fans and I've mentioned so many times coming out before the game starts and there's six, seven people deep. It's exciting. Our players have to see that. We see it," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "We feed off that energy.
"We love playing here. Our fans get us excited. We're excited to play here. We play well here. If we can play a seven-game series and have four here, that would be good."

The Wild used that energy to its advantage in the win Thursday night, as the teams combined for six second-period goals in a contest that went to the third period tied at 3-3.
Minnesota rallied for the final four goals of the game, getting the eventual winner from Kevin Fiala, his second of the game, with just under eight minutes left in regulation.
Kirill Kaprizov and Ryan Hartman would follow with goals in the final two minutes to ice the game. Kaprizov finished with a goal and two assists, as did Mats Zuccarello.
For Fiala, the two-goal night extended his point streak to eight games, during which, he has nine goals and seven assists. He's got three consecutive multi-point games and five in the past six.
"He's playing right, that's for sure. He's got a lot of confidence," Evason said. "Again, what we like is he's been a great teammate through it all and he's done a lot of things defensively, verbally on the bench, penalty kill, in all areas of the game. I guess it's one thing to be on a heat individually scoring goals but you still have to do a lot of things to allow your team to have success. He's doing a lot of those as well."
Defenseman Jon Merrill returned to the lineup after missing 10 games with an upper-body injury and had one assist. Forward Tyson Jost is expected to return to the lineup against the Kraken. He's missed the past three games with a lower-body injury.
Defenseman Matt Dumba (upper body) and forwards Jordan Greenway (upper body) and Marcus Foligno (COVID-19 protocol) will not play Friday, although all three could hypothetically return for the game Sunday in Nashville.
Cam Talbot earned the win over Vancouver by making 21 saves to earn his 200th NHL win, so Marc-Andre Fleury will start the second of the back-to-backs against Seattle.
Fleury started twice against Seattle as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, going 1-0-1 with a 1.92 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage in those two starts, stopping 66 of 70 shots against overall.
The Kraken has won four of its past five against Central Division foes and won the first-ever matchup 4-1 against the Wild in Seattle on Oct. 28. Minnesota responded with a 4-2 victory at Climate Pledge Arena on Nov. 13.
Seattle has been inconsistent offensively this season, which was to be expected. Jared McCann leads the club with 26 goals and 45 points. He's the only Kraken with 20 goals this season, while Minnesota has three players with at least 30 goals and one with 44.
There is help on the way, however, as rookie forward Matty Beniers -- the second overall pick in the 2021 NHL Draft who just signed with Seattle earlier this month following one season at the University of Michigan -- has a point in each of his first four games in the league.
One bright spot has been former Wild defenseman Carson Soucy, who has tallied 10 goals and 20 points and is a team-best plus-12.
Philipp Grubauer has started 52 games this season, posting an 18-29-5 record to go with a 3.09 goals-against average and an .891 save percentage. He has won three of his past four starts, however, allowing a total of just eight goals in those games.