The Utah Hockey Club have matched their season high with three straight victories.
On Friday night, Utah will have a chance to make history as it goes for its first four-game winning streak since moving to Salt Lake City. Utah will take on the Minnesota Wild in Saint Paul, Minn.
Utah coach Andre Tourigny praised his team for its recent hot streak, which includes points in six straight games (5-0-1). He is looking for his players to continue their success following a 3-2 overtime win against the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night.
In the teams’ first meeting Dec. 10 in Salt Lake City, the Wild outlasted Utah for a 5-4 win in the shootout round.
“We’ll use the midnight rule, and we’ll get ready for (Minnesota),” Tourigny said. “It’s a super important game, and the last time they came here, even if we hung in there and got a point, they showed us why they’re a top team in our conference.
“They got beat (6-1 on Wednesday) at home by Florida. They will be ready; we will be ready, too. That will be a good game.”
Utah’s Clayton Keller and Dylan Guenther are tied for the team lead with 30 points apiece through 31 games. Keller has 11 goals and 19 assists, and Guenther has 14 goals and 16 assists.
Logan Cooley is the team’s third-leading scorer with 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists).
Minnesota also features plenty of talent at the top of its roster.
No player is more skilled than Kirill Kaprizov, who is off to the best start of his career in his fifth season. Kaprizov has 48 points (22 goals, 26 assists) in 31 games, and the forward leads the league with 19 even-strength goals and a plus-minus rating of plus-23.
Matt Boldy is second on the Wild with 30 points (13 goals, 17 assists) in 32 games, and Marco Rossi ranks third with 26 points (12, 14) in 32 games.
Utah could turn to Karel Vejmelka or Jaxson Stauber in net as it looks to quiet Kaprizov and the rest of his Wild teammates.
Vejmelka started Utah’s last game and earned the victory after stopping 24 of 26 shots against Vancouver. He is 7-7-2 with a 2.37 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage on the season.
Stauber is 2-0-0 with a 1.00 GAA and a .962 save percentage in two games this season. The Minnesota native and son of former NHL goaltender Robb Stauber has appeared in eight career games.
The Wild’s options in net include Marc-Andre Fleury and Jesper Wallstedt. Top netminder Filip Gustavsson has been sidelined for a few days because of an unspecified lower-body injury, and it is uncertain how soon he will return.
Fleury is 6-2-1 with a 2.88 GAA and an .898 save percentage this season. He sustained one of his toughest outings of the season when he gave up six goals against Florida in his most recent outing.
“No season is perfect, right?” said Fleury, 40. “Right now, we’re seeing a little adversity, and we’ve gotta find a way out of it and get back on the right track here.”
Wallstedt is 0-1-0 with a 3.12 GAA and an .889 percentage in one start this season. The highly touted 22-year-old has two career victories in four career games.
–Field Level Media
