Game 52 Hub: Minnesota Wild @ Ottawa Senators

After dusting off the team with the league's best record, the Sens are welcoming a different challenge to the Canadian Tire Centre tonight as they face a Minnesota Wild squad whose simple, straight-line hockey with strong goaltending has earned them a 20-5-3 (!) record on the road this season.

Both teams are on a three-game winning streak, as the Wild wrapped up January with victories against Chicago, Toronto, and Montréal despite missing some big names with injuries.

Lineups:

Travis Green confirmed this morning that the team will roll with the same lines as Thursday night's outing against Washington, with Leevi Meriläinen in goal and Anton Forsberg backing him up.

Meanwhile, this is the group that John Hynes put together that shut out the Habs on Thursday night. We're unsure as of yet on whether Marc-Andre Fleury will have a chance to say goodbye to fans in Ottawa or whether the team will face former netminder Filip Gustavsson:

Game Notes:

• Per Michael Russo, the Minnesota Wild have only allowed one goal in the first period in their last nine road games.
• Kaprizov successfully underwent surgery last week and is expected to be back in a month's time. Marcus Johansson and Jonas Brodin are also on their injured reserve. While the Wild's goaltenders do a good job keeping the puck out of their net, this is a depleted team with poor shot metrics and special teams. The Sens should have the puck, and their challenge will be solving the goaltender. Uh oh.
• The Wild will probably look the most dangerous with either of their top two lines on the ice with the Declan Chisholm and Jared Spurgeon pair. They had some surprising contributions from the bottom of their lineup against Montréal, but like Ottawa, that's been an area of weakness for them all season.
• On the Sens injury front, Linus Ullmark continues to be "close" and will travel with the team on the upcoming road trip – where I imagine they'll carry three goaltenders. However, Nick Jensen hasn't skated yet as he recovers from a lower-body injury, so we'll see if he joins the team on Ottawa's four-game road trip next week.

Player Stats:

Team Stats: