Last-Minute Changes, News, Reports before Wild vs Mammoth

The Wild are first place in the Central by 2 points, and tonight they play the team right behind them on the road, and one of their goalies has a .918 save percentage, while the other team's has an .878. Wallstedt is at a .918 save percentage over 11 games, Vemelka is at a .878 over 10. That gap could be the whole game. But Utah scores 3.83 goals a game, so a bad goalie does not mean an easy night. Here's who plays, who doesn't, and the one player Utah has to stop. Minnesota is 8-3-2 with 18 points through 13 games. Utah is 8-4-0 with 16 points through 12. So the Wild do lead by 2 points, but Utah has a game in hand. Win tonight, they lead by 4 points. Losing regulation, they're tied in points with Utah, and they're holding that extra game. Minnesota has won 2 in a row, 5-1 in Seattle on Saturday, and 4-2 in Vancouver on Sunday. Before that, they lost 4-3 at Edmonton and 2-1 in Calgary. That is three wins and two losses in their last five games. Be sure to subscribe to the channel. We cover every Wild game on the channel and every single bit of news. We're currently sitting at 5,715 subscribers. We're on the road to 6,000. Start with the goals. Utah scored 3.83 per game, the most of any team in this matchup, and gives up 3.33. Minnesota scores 3.15 and gives up 2.31. That is a full goal, a game better on defense for the Wild. Utah is the team you have to outscore. Minnesota is the team you have to break. The shot totals say the same thing. Utah gets 30.4 shots a game and allows 23.5. So they do control play. Minnesota gets 31.3 and allows 24.9. Both teams shoot about the same, and one of them is stopping it much better. Put it together, Utah has fewer shots than Minnesota and still allows more goals. That's the goaltending gap in one sentence. One place Utah does have the edge is the faceoff dot. They win 54.1% of their draws, and Minnesota wins 50.7%. Eric Sleek and the other centers will have to win the puck back, especially on the penalty kill. Now, Kaprizov has 13 goals in 13 games this season. That is 8 more than Matt Boldy, who is second on the team with 5. He also has 8 assists for 21 points on 44 shots on goal, and 3 of those 13 goals came on the power play. And he's not just shooting a lot. Kaprizov has scored on 13 of his 44 shots, which is 29.5%. Boldy's taken 59 shots, the most on the team, and scored on 5 of them, which is an 8.5%. If Boldy's shots start going in more, Minnesota gets harder to stop. Here's the number that scares me. Utah's power play is clicking at 38.1%. That's the best in this matchup by 12 points. The good news is that Minnesota kills penalties at 80.5%, Utah's penalty kill is at 66.7%. So, to me, this is the staying out of the box game. If the Wild take penalties, it's playing into the strongest part of Utah's game. And if Utah takes them, the Wild have a better power play and a chance to take the game. Kaprizov has three of Minnesota's power play goals, Hughes has two, Shabanov and Coleman each have two. That is four different players on the power play with at least two goals. So, looking at the players to watch, the first is Matt Boldy. He leads Minnesota with 59 shots on goal. He has 5 goals and 6 assists. If the shot turns into goals tonight, Kaprizov will not have to do it alone. Second, Joel Eriksson Ek. The center between them, he has 3 goals and 7 assists. He played 28 minutes, 10 seconds on Sunday with 5 shots on goal. He is the one who has to win the matchup against Utah's top centers. And third, on Utah, Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther. Guenther has 5 goals on 35 shots. Cooley has 11 points in 12 games. Those are two reasons Utah can score even when the goalie struggles. And last is Nick Schmaltz, who has 7 goals on 32 shots, which is 21.9%. This pace nobody keeps up, so the Wild's defense can make him shoot. From the outside, his percentage is going to drop. Minnesota played the second night of a back-to-back in Vancouver, so Calvin Pickard started that game, made 15 saves on 17 shots. Jesper Wallstedt had played the night before, stopped 23 of 24, Which is why Wallstedt is getting the net tonight. He has 7 wins in 11 games, a 2.08 goals against average, and a .918 save percentage. Pickard is at .833 over 2 games, which is a tiny sample, but it's the only one we have right now. And at the other end, Connor Vemelka is a 3.13 goals against average and an 878 save percentage over 10 games. Sebastian Kasa, the backup, is at .820 over 4. Neither team has been shutting anybody down thus far. Utah has one shutout this season. Minnesota has 0 through 13 games. Both teams expect to give up a goal or so tonight, so scoring first matters more than usual. Wallstedt has not had an easy time with Utah, made 32 saves on 37 shots in a 5-2 loss on February 27th. That's an .865 save percentage in that game, and tonight, it's a chance to redeem himself and change that. Last season, these two teams played three times, and the story flipped. Utah won 6-2 in Minnesota on October 25th, 2025, and 5-2 in Utah on February 27th, 2026. Then on March 10th, Minnesota won 5-0. Philip Gustafson made all 25 saves and Bobby Brink, Boldy, Yurov, Ryan Hartman, and Kirill Kaprizov all scored. That is the best the Wild have looked against this team and here's the catch though. That was Philip Gustafson. He's still injured, still on the LTIR after that hip surgery. So we're not having him tonight and Wallstead gets the opportunity to bounce back. In the two games Utah won, Minnesota gave up five or more goals each time, and in the one-on-one, it's pretty simple. It scored five, gave up none, so you got to keep that pattern going. Here's Minnesota's lineup tonight with no changes from the group that played Sunday in Vancouver, apart from Jesper Wallstedt. Dabrizov, Eriksson, Boldy up top, Shabanov, McCarron, and Coleman behind them, Brink, Yurov, and Trenin on the third line, and Sturm, Hartman, and Pitlick on the fourth. On defense, Hughes and Spurgeon, Brodine and Mata, then Bogosian and Kierstead. Hughes played 26 minutes and 10 seconds on Sunday, the most on the team. And again, no Folinos. Marcus is on the injury reserve with a lower body still. Nick Folino with an upper body injury. And of course, Brock Faber still out as well as Philip Gustafson on the LTIR after that hip surgery. And on Sunday, four different Wild players scored. Bobby Brink got his first of the season. Maxime Shabanov, Kirill Kaprizov, and Quinn Hughes. That is a team that has been getting goals from more than the top line, which is what we want to see against Utah, but every other game as well. Bottom of the line up here is where I'm going to be watching in this one. Blake Coleman and Yurov have four goals each, Shabanov has three, Brink has one, Trennan got none in 13 games, and Pitlick has played seven games with no points. Utah's three and two in the last five, but the games are wild. It beat Edmonton four to two, lost six to two to them, beat Pittsburgh five to four, lost five three in Seattle, and beat Tampa Bay five four on Sunday. In those five games, Utah scored 19 times and allowed 21 goals. That's a 3.84 and a 4.2 against. This team has a lot of high scoring games. And Minnesota's the opposite. This last five, they've scored 15 and allowed 10. 3-4 a game, 2 against per game. Utah's had two days since Saturday's game. Minnesota's had one. It's not a big gap, but it is the type of thing that matters when a game is close. And tonight is going to be one of those tight, close games. Now, before I give you my pick for this game, here are the three things I'm watching. Once again, it's going to be the goalie. Wallstedt's at .918 save percentage, and you're looking at Pickard, an .833, who gets the bench here tonight. The penalties want to see Utah's power play kind of diminish that percentage where they're sitting at 38.1, and whether the bottom line scores or not, they need to keep some sort of offense going, because Trennan has zero goals. Pitlick has zero points. It's only a matter of time until we see these guys get on the board. So here's my call. Wallstedt is far better than Vemelka right now, and will be for the season. Kaprizov's better than anyone Utah has. The Wild penalty kills are going to be better. They're going to be good. Power play is going to be better. So keeping that special teams ready, keeping everything ready, that's what matters. My pick's going to be Minnesota. Maybe a close one, but as long as Walsh is the starter and the Wild stay out of the box, they have the win. Puck drops here to 8 Central tonight in Utah, 9 Eastern. We'll be back right after the game as well, as multiple other updates. And let me know in the comments below, who scores tonight first, Kaprizov or Keller?