GAMEDAY: Wild vs. Stars

And we’re off.

The sprint that is the 48-game NHL regular season blasted off yesterday. The Minnesota Wild won’t get any time to enjoy last night’s 4-2 victory against the Colorado Avalanche, as the club hosts the Dallas Stars tonight. The Saturday-Sunday back-to-back represents the first in nine times the Wild will have games on consecutive nights.

With the compacted schedule, fatigue will factor into these games at some point, but when that point is, no one can predict. Travel will factor into the schedule, and the Wild and Stars will be the two most frequent flyers this season, with the most projected travel miles in the NHL. But tonight, the Wild will have the rest advantage having slept in their own beds, while the Stars jumped onto a plane and headed straight to the State of Hockey after yesterday’s win against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Instead of going through a morning skate, the Wild will only hold an a.m. meeting, in order to try and get as much rest as possible. If the crowd at Xcel Energy Center is as frenetic as it was yesterday, it should give Minnesota an added adrenaline kick, making up for rest.

After a sluggish first period yesterday, the Wild came alive in the second period against the Avs, scoring three unanswered goals. The power play was clicking, as Dany Heatley scored twice, on similar plays, with assists going to Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu on both. Rookie Mikael Granlund made an impact in his NHL debut, scoring his first-career goal on a tipped point shot from Jared Spurgeon. Granlund won an right-circle offensive zone faceoff and Devin Setoguchi banged the puck back to the point. Spurgeon collected the biscuit and fired a waist-high wrist shot, which Granlund tipped past Semyon Varlamov. In the third period, the Wild and Avs traded goals, with Pierre-Marc Bouchard scoring his first marker in more than a year. Cal Clutterbuck took a pass from Kyle Brodziak and chipped the puck past the Colorado defender. He then broke in on goal and got a shot off, but was stopped by the Avs netminder. Bouchard was breaking to the net and banged home a rebound to secure the Wild’s win. Niklas Backstrom continued his dominance against the Avs, making 22 saves in the victory.

The Dallas Stars outlasted the Coyotes, 4-3. Dallas was paced by ageless wonders, and free-agent acquisitions, Jaromir Jagr had two goals and two assists, and Ray Whitney scored a goal. Loui Eriksson scored with 6:55 left in the third period to snap a 3-3 tie. Kari Lehtonen was busy in net, stopping 37 of 40 shots for the win.