Wild Announce Lineup For Saturday’s Preseason Game

The Wild have announced the lineup for tonight’s home preseason tilt against the Winnipeg Jets. It’ll be the first home game this preseason and fans’ first glimpse of the new scoreboard in Xcel Energy Center.

The lineup is looking like this for the 0-1-1 Wild’s third preseason game:

Forwards
Zack Parise
Mikael Granlund
Jason Pominville
Nino Niederreiter
Mikko Koivu
Charlie Coyle
Matt Cooke
Erik Haula
Justin Fontaine
Kyle Brodziak
Michael Keranen
Joel Rechlicz

Defenseman
Ryan Suter
Jonas Brodin
Marco Scandella
Jared Spurgeon
Gustav Olofsson
Matt Dumba

Goaltenders
Niklas Backstrom
Darcy Kuemper

Cobbling together some line combos from observations and announcements yesterday it looks like the forward group will look like this:

Parise-Granlund-Pominville
Cooke-Koivu-Fontaine
Niederreiter-Haula-Coyle
Keranen-Brodziak-Rechlicz
[These line combinations have changed, see update below.]

The forward group will be missing Thomas Vanek who day-to-day following a hit he took during Thursday’s game against Pittsburgh, as is Keith Ballard, who was experiencing soreness where he had off-season surgery.

The forward group is a little weird. Adding Matt Cooke to Koivu’s line and continuing the experiment with Justin Fontaine at Koivu’s wing is an interesting choice. It seems like we already know what Cooke is and how he plays with others. The ceiling on Cooke at the wing with Koivu seems low. There’s a lot of defensive potential, but that would limit the offensive potential of a second line if Cooke was on it. It seems like an unlikely scenario for the season. The preseason is a time to experiment a bit. What about throwing Nino Niederreiter or Michael Keranen on Koivu’s wing and seeing if there’s a little magic there?

In net, Mike Yeo has said that he plans on giving Niklas Backstrom the full 60 minutes tonight. That likely means that the next game we’ll see Darcy Kuemper grab a full 60.

There’s one spot there that I saw some people questioning yesterday: Keranen playing wing on a line with Kyle Brodziak and Joel “The Wrecker” Rechlicz. For one perspective that completely buries Keranen, who brings offensive skill to the table and isn’t known for toughness, partly due to being on the smaller side. It could look like they’re burying his talent and putting him on a line doesn’t give him an opportunity to thrive and will probably earn him a bus ticket to Des Moines. But I actually like this move. I think it means the team is genuinely interested in seeing if Keranen could work at the NHL level.

Keranen does bring a lot of offensive talent, but if he’s going to get a chance in the NHL this season it’s likely to be in a fourth or maybe a third line role. Putting him out there with Brodziak, who is going to be the fourth line center and is going to get heavy defensive deployment, along with Rechlicz who is best known for what he does with his fists instead of the puck, gives Keranen a challenge. Keranen will have to thrive offensively despite the assignment of the line. He’ll have to prove he’s capable defensively and able to play a tougher, more physical role. This is kind of the worst case scenario for his skill set if he does get called up. Can he make that work? Is he capable of playing this role if he gets a call up and they need a fourth line to absorb some heavy defensive deployment for a game? It’s a test for Keranen to see if he’s going to fit in if they call on him.

I’ve only said it about 40 times, but I like what I’ve seen from Keranen and am glad that they’re giving him this kind of challenge to see if he’s ready.

UPDATE 11:37am
Lines have changed up since yesterday. Here’s how lines wound up this morning during morning skate. 4th line with Keranen-Brodziak-Rechlicz is the only one in tact from above.