The Minnesota Wild skates into Anaheim to face the Ducks on a two-game win streak after taking a pair of back-to-back home wins earlier this week. The Wild still searches for its first win on the road and tonight marks a good test against the Ducks, currently second in the Pacific Division. Last season, the two teams split a four-game series. Tonight’s game opens a three-game season series between the clubs. Minnesota didn’t practice yesterday, as the team was traveling to California.

In the Wild’s last outing, the big story was the offensive contributions from forwards not named Dany Heatley, Mikko Koivu or Zach Parise. The team’s top line was carrying the offensive load through the first six games, but the club needs ancillary scoring from its other lines. The Wild hopes its last outing will jump-start production from its other nine forwards.

The Wild topped the Chicago Blackhawks in a 3-2 shootout victory at Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday in front of a national audience on NBC Sports Network. It was the third-largest television audience for a regular-season game in the Network’s history. Matt Cullen scored his first of the season only 90 seconds into the game, with assists going to Devin Setoguchi and Mikael Granlund. After two Blackhawk tallies, Cal Clutterbuck scored his first of the year on a backhand tip from Tom Gilbert. In the shootout, Zach Parise and Cullen scored, while Niklas Backstrom saved 2-of-3 Hawks to preserve the victory. Backstrom came into the game in the first period in relief of Josh Harding, saving all 28 shots he faced for the win.

In its last outing, the Ducks fell to the San Jose Sharks in a shootout, 3-2. Anaheim was paced by goals from Francois Beauchemin and Matt Beleskey. Ducks netminder Jonas Hiller made 16 saves in the loss.