Minnesota Wild begin a three game stretch in California

The San Jose Sharks will try to cool down the surging Minnesota Wild tonight at the Shark Tank.

Minnesota Wild’s longest road trip in franchise history has been a success so far after destroying the St. Louis Blues Saturday night 5-1.

Finally, the Minnesota Wild scored first in a game where Eric Staal tallied his 400th regular season goal of his career. Overall, St. Louis looked flat all game, and the Wild out-shot the Blues 45 to 16.

Defenseman Nick Seeler scored his first NHL regular season goal and added two assists against the Blues.

Winkler, Manitoba native Eric Fehr has been a big help for the Wild of late with six points in his last six game (2-4-6).

JT Brown scored his first goal as a Minnesota Wild player on Saturday. The Burnsville native now has 21 goals in 319 regular season games.

Mikael Granlund has the longest active point streak in the NHL right now with 13 points (6-7=13) in the last ten games.

D Nate Prosser was recalled from Iowa (AHL) on Sunday (11/4).

Per dailyfaceoff.com G Devan Dubnyk is expected to start against the Sharks. Against the Blues Saturday night Dubnyk was hardly tested allowing just one goal on 16 shots. He is now (5-1-0) in his last six games.

Opponent – San Jose Sharks:

San Jose has won three out of their last four games and should be well-rested. Saturday, they beat the Flyers 4-3 in San Jose. Dubnyk will see plenty of rubber tonight as the Sharks have outshot their opponents in 12 of 14 games this season.

According to dailyfaceoff.com, G Martin Jones will start for the Sharks tonight. Jones is (5-0-1) in his last six games with a 2.41 GAA and a .912 SV%.

Minnesota Wild (8-3-2) at San Jose Sharks (7-4-3)

Puck Drop: 9:38 p.m. CT
Radio: KFAN FM and affiliates
Watch: Fox Sports North; Fox Sports app

All-Time Record vs. Sharks: 28-27-7 (16-10-4 at Xcel Energy Center, 12-17-3 at San Jose)
17-18: Minnesota Wild went (3-0-0) vs. Sharks

Team Series Leaders:

Minnesota Wild: Staal leads Minnesota with 21 points (13-8=21) in 20 career games vs. the Sharks. Stalock is 1-0-0 with a 2.84 GAA
San Jose Sharks: Joe Thornton leads San Jose with 40 points (11-29=40) in 45 games against the Wild and a .912 SV% in one career start.
Wild Goalies vs. Sharks: Dubnyk is 10-8-2 with a 2.89 GAA and a .909 SV% in 20 starts against San Jose.
Sharks Goalies vs. Wild: Jones is 2-5-2 with a 2.88 GAA, a .896 SV% and one shutout in 10 games (nine starts) against Minnesota. Dell made four saves in relief in his only career action against the Wild on 4/7/18.

Injuries:

Minnesota Wild: Matt Hendricks (lower body)
San Jose Sharks: Tomas Hertl (head)

As of 1/5/17, Minnesota has a six-game winning streak against the Sharks. The streak could easily continue tonight if they come out flying as they did against the Blues. Should be a battle tonight at the Shark Tank.

All stats courtesy of nhl.com and dailyfaceoff.com.