Scouting the Wild

This is the third of four meetings between the Kings and Minnesota Wild this season, and the first two couldn’t have been any closer or more equal on the scoreboard. The Kings came to Minnesota on Oct. 25 and won 3-2 in a shootout, and the Wild came to Los Angeles on Dec. 11 and won 3-2 in overtime. As noted earlier, the teams both have 55 points this season, so it should be a good game. It will be the 1,000th career game for Minnesota’s Andrew Brunette. For the latest, leading up to the game, please check out my LAKings.com notebook for today, followed by game-preview stories from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Pioneer Press, followed by the expected lineups for the Wild and Kings…

Kings notebook (Feb. 1)

Andrew Brunette reaches a milestone with Wild (Star-Tribune)

Streaky Minnesota Wild confident team can clean up its act (Pioneer Press)

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WILD LINEUP
Andrew Brunette-Mikko Koivu-Antti Miettinen
Cal Clutterbuck-Kyle Brodziak-Martin Havlat
Pierre-Marc Bouchard-Matt Cullen-Chuck Kobasew
Eric Nystrom-John Madden-Brad Staubitz

Nick Schultz-Brent Burns
Clayton Stoner-Greg Zanon
Cam Barker-Jared Spurgeon

Nicklas Backstrom

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KINGS LINEUP
Loktionov-Kopitar-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams
Clifford-Lewis-Simmonds
Richardson-Handzus-Ponikarovsky

Mitchell-Doughty
Johnson-Scuderi
Martinez-Greene

Bernier