Wild Warmup: Minnesota vs. Chicago

The essentials

At the rink

After skating to a 4-2 victory in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, the Minnesota Wild will not skate Wednesday morning at Xcel Energy Center.
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Alex Tuch
Mikael Granlund - Mikko Koivu - Jason Zucker
Nino Niederreiter - Charlie Coyle - Jason Pominville
Chris Stewart - Erik Haula - Tyler Graovac
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella - Matt Dumba
Gustav Olofsson - Christian Folin
Darcy Kuemper
Devan Dubnyk
BLACKHAWKS
Nick Schmaltz - Jonathan Toews - Richard Panik
Artemi Panarin - Artem Anisimov - Patrick Kane
Dennis Rasmussen - Marcus Kruger - Marian Hossa
Ryan Hartman - Tanner Kero - Jordin Tootoo
Duncan Keith - Niklas Hjalmarsson
Gustav Forsling - Brent Seabrook
Brian Campbell - Trevor van Riemsdyk
Corey Crawford
Scott Darling

The Opponent

In the midst of a six-game stretch of road contests, the Chicago Blackhawks enter Wednesday's game having won each of their past two games. The Blackhawks scored a 5-3 win in Dallas their last time out on Saturday, getting three goals over the final 10:01 of regulation to dig out of a one-goal hole midway through the third period. Chicago enters the game six points behind the Wild in the Central Division standings, but Minnesota has two games in hand.

Connections

• Wild coach Bruce Boudreau played in seven games for the Blackhawks during the 1985-86 season.
• Wild goaltending coach Bob Mason skated in 41 games for Chicago during the 1987-88 campaign.

Streaking against Chi-town

The Wild's current eight-game win streak against the Black­hawks is one game shy of tying the franchise-best nine-game win streak against a single NHL opponent, done twice, versus Arizona (1/24/06-11/13/08) and against Chicago (1/20/06-1/11/08). The streak is also tied for the fifth-longest active streak in the NHL versus a single NHL opponent (Elias Sports Bureau). Minnesota is 14-6-1 in its last 21 games against the Blackhawks with 12 of the contests being decided by one goal and five going to a shootout.