Calgary @ Minnesota preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 2, 2019 ) Minnesota 4, Calgary 2

The Minnesota Wild will attempt to bring more normalcy to their performance after two totally opposite results when they host the Calgary Flames on Monday night in the final game before Christmas break. The Wild’s offense produced a season-high output in an 8-5 victory at Arizona on Thursday before being blanked for the third time in 2019-20 with a 6-0 setback versus Winnipeg at home on Saturday.

Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau didn’t like the fact his team gave up 11 goals in two games and forward Mats Zuccarello told reporters after Saturday’s loss: “It’s important that we just forget, don’t lose confidence off of this. We had a good stretch of games here and we were playing pretty well, so we just have to forget this, learn from it and move on to the next one.” The Wild had points in 14 of 15 games (10-1-4) before losing three of the past four and they will try to begin turning the tables on Calgary, which took two of three in the series last season and has won its past two trips to Minnesota. The Flames snapped a three-game losing streak by scoring three times on the power play en route to a solid 5-1 victory at Dallas on Sunday, producing one more goal than they managed during their 0-2-1 slide. Leading scorer Matthew Tkachuk (14 goals, 32 points) recorded a goal and two assists in the victory, but has been held to two points in nine previous contests against the Wild.

TV: 5 p.m. ET, Sportsnet West (Calgary), FS Wisconsin, FS North (Minnesota)

ABOUT THE FLAMES (19-14-5): Sean Monahan scored his fifth goal in nine games this month and added an assist Sunday to move into second on the team with 30 points - one more than fellow forward Johnny Gaudreau (10 goals). Elias Lindholm, who leads the club with 15 goals, chipped in with three assists Sunday to push his total to 28 points and fellow forward Derek Ryan had a goal and an assist for his third multi-point game in December. David Rittich stopped 26-of-27 shots to post his 16th victory against Dallas and backup Cam Talbot (3-6-0, .910 save percentage) could be in line for his 10th start of the season.

ABOUT THE WILD (17-15-5): Veteran center Eric Staal saw his five-game point streak (five goals, four assists) come to an end Saturday, but leads the team with 30 points. Jason Zucker is tied with defenseman Ryan Suter for second on the team with 24 points, but will miss 4-to-6 weeks after surgery to repair a broken right fibula, and fellow left wing Zach Parise leads the club with 14 goals - two in the last five contests. Zuccarello has picked it up with 11 of his 22 points in the last 12 games while Minnesota awaits the return of fellow forwards Joel Eriksson Ek (upper body) and captain Mikko Koivu (lower body) in the near future.

OVERTIME

1. Calgary C Mikael Backlund snapped an 18-game goal drought with his fourth of the season Sunday.

2. Minnesota G Devan Dubnyk stopped 38-of-43 shots in two games since returning from a month absence because of personal reasons.

3. Flames F Tobias Rieder has six points in nine contests this month after managing one in the first 20 games of his season.

PREDICTION: Wild 4, Flames 3