The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
ST. PAUL -- After an unexpected few days without a game, the Wild will be back in action on Thursday when it hosts the Buffalo Sabres at Xcel Energy Center.
Minnesota was scheduled to play the Carolina Hurricanes here on Tuesday, but that game was postponed after a rash of COVID-19 positive tests with the Hurricanes prevented the game from being played.
The Wild presently has no players on the COVID-19 protocol list after Freddy Gaudreau returned to the team Sunday in Las Vegas.
That game was the last one played by the Wild, and the break between then and now could certainly help a club that had played a bunch of hockey in the days leading up to it. Minnesota was returning home following a four-game road trip that concluded Saturday and Sunday with back-to-back games in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The Wild had played six games in 11 nights since Dec. 2 and 10 games in 18 nights since Nov. 24.
During that stretch, the Wild had weathered a number of injuries and absences along its blueline, with Jared Spurgeon missing eight games because of a lower-body injury, Matt Dumba missing one because of non-COVID illness and Jonas Brodin missing two games because of an upper-body injury.
Spurgeon has played in each of the past two games while Dumba missed only the contest in San Jose, which was Brodin's last game after he said he was injured on his penultimate shift in that game.
He missed both ends of the back-to-back, but was set to return to the lineup Tuesday before the postponement. The extra couple of days should help Brodin feel even better for the pre-Christmas schedule.
Between now and the three-day holiday break, the Wild will play four games, with three of them coming at Xcel Energy Center. After Thursday night's game against the Sabres, the Wild will host the Florida Panthers for a matinee on Saturday before a quick one-game trip to Dallas for a game Monday night.
Minnesota will host Detroit next Thursday night in the final game before the break. A day trip to Winnipeg on Dec. 27 will round out the Wild's schedule before the Winter Classic against St. Louis at Target Field on New Year's Day.
The Sabres are coming off a 4-2 win in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, a game that started a three-game road trip that concludes Friday night in Pittsburgh.
Buffalo, which finished with the fewest points in the NHL last season, has played solidly for stretches so far this season and currently sits in sixth place in the Atlantic Division standings. Over its past three games, the Sabres have lost 2-1 to the New York Rangers, took the Washington Capitals to a shootout and doubled up the Jets on the road.
They've done it by committee offensively, with 10 players having reached double digits in points - none of them having reached 20.
St. Paul native Kyle Okposo, a former Golden Gopher, leads Buffalo with 13 assists and 19 points in 28 games played. Okposo had 13 points in 35 games last year and 19 points in 52 contests the year prior.
Tage Thompson has a team-leading 10 goals while Jeff Skinner, Rasmus Dahlin and Victor Olofsson each have 17 points.
The Sabres have used four different goaltenders already this season, with Dustin Tokarski seeing a bulk of the action. In 14 games (13 starts), Tokarski is 4-5-3 with a 3.28 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage.
But it has been 22-year-old Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen that has been at the forefront of late. He made 34 saves in the win in Winnipeg, and backstopped the Sabres to the tone of 40 saves in the shootout loss to the Caps.
In four games, he's 1-2-1 but has a sub-2.00 goals against and a save percentage of .939.
