Utah has given up the first goal inside six minutes in each of its last four games, and it has gotten away with that twice. Connor McDavid scored 40 seconds into the Oct. 17 game, Erik Karlsson 1:11 into Oct. 19, Jordan Eberle 3:38 into Oct. 22 and Jake Guentzel 5:10 into Saturday. Utah lost to Edmonton and Seattle and came back to beat Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. Minnesota is a worse team to try that against. The Wild lead the Central, and they're 6-0-2 when they score first. Tuesday answers whether Utah can stop starting from behind against a team that hasn't lost in regulation when it scores first.
- Puck drop: 7:00 p.m. MT, Delta Center (game page)
- Watch: Mammoth+, Utah16. Listen: KSL Sports Zone.
- Utah: 8-4-0, 16 points, second in the Central with a game in hand, 4-1-0 at home. Off since Saturday's 5-4 overtime win over Tampa Bay.
- Minnesota: 8-3-2, 18 points, first in the Central and second in the West (Edmonton also has 18, with a game in hand), 4-3-2 on the road. Won 5-1 at Seattle on Saturday and 4-2 at Vancouver on Sunday, then had Monday off. This is the Wild's fourth game in six days; neither team is on a back-to-back.
- The first of four meetings this season. Utah won two of three last season (schedule).
- Every number here is as of Tuesday morning; neither team played Monday.
What Utah's comebacks have cost
Opponents have scored first in seven of Utah's 12 games. Utah is 3-4-0 in those and 5-0-0 when it scores first, by our count from the NHL play-by-play. The first period is the only one Utah has lost, 15-13 on goals. After the first intermission it's 33-25 Utah.
The four early goals didn't come the same way. McDavid's backhand, Eberle's slap shot and Guentzel's goal were at five-on-five. Karlsson's slap shot came on a power play that started 19 seconds into the game. Brogan Houston's Deseret News column after the Seattle loss put Utah's trouble on its goaltending, and we've made our own case for Karel Vejmelka. We read the early goals as a team problem more than a goalie one. André Tourigny described what the Tampa goal did to his team: "After they scored, you could see the stress and we were not as connected from that moment," he said in the Mammoth's game story on NHL.com.
The same story treats Saturday as a lesson in resilience, and Tourigny listed among the season's goals "being able to find a B game." We liked the comeback too (our recap). What worries us is what it cost. Utah's three wins after giving up the first goal were 4-1 at Buffalo, 5-4 over Pittsburgh and 5-4 in overtime over Tampa Bay, so two of them took five goals. Minnesota has allowed five goals once in 13 games and four or more three times. It gives up 2.31 a game, third fewest in the NHL.
Minnesota doesn't usually score early
That's where Utah's opening is. The Wild have scored the game's first goal inside six minutes only three times in 13 games. Their first goal on Sunday came at 18:33 of the first, a Maxim Shabanov power-play goal, after a period in which, by John Hynes's account in the NHL.com recap, Vancouver "kind of took the play to us a little bit." Minnesota has also given up the game's first goal inside two minutes three times, to Boston, Winnipeg and St. Louis. It came back to win two of those, which tells you the Wild don't fold either.
Once Minnesota leads, it's a hard team to catch. Kirill Kaprizov leads the NHL with 13 goals and has 21 points. Quinn Hughes has 16 points and got his 500th career point in Vancouver on Sunday. Daily Faceoff's projection has Kaprizov with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy, and Hughes with Jared Spurgeon. The Wild's power play is 26.2 percent, seventh, and Utah's kill is 26-for-39, 66.7 percent, 29th, so an early penalty is the quickest way to hand Minnesota the first goal.
Minnesota is missing Brock Faber, Filip Gustavsson, Nick Foligno and Marcus Foligno, all with no timetable, per the Wild's game preview on NHL.com on Sunday. Utah is without Michael Carcone, on injured reserve, and John Marino, who is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, per the Mammoth's Week Ahead on NHL.com.
The net
Both starters are confirmed, per Daily Faceoff's starting goalies page. Jesper Wallstedt has started 11 of Minnesota's 13 games and is 7-2-2 with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. Calvin Pickard's two starts were both the second night of a back-to-back, on Oct. 13 at Winnipeg and Sunday at Vancouver, and Wallstedt last played Saturday. Daily Faceoff's Wild page, updated Monday morning, lists Wallstedt first, and its starting goalies page has him confirmed for Tuesday, citing Joe O'Donnell.
Vejmelka started Utah's last two games and is 6-3-0 with an .874 save percentage, by the shots and goals the NHL lists, and a 3.13 goals-against average. On Saturday he made 28 saves on 32 shots, per the NHL's Game Summary and the Mammoth PR postgame notes, and stopped the last 16. Sebastian Cossa started Oct. 19 and is 2-1-0 at .820. Daily Faceoff's starting goalies page has Vejmelka confirmed to start, citing Cole Bagley. The lines are still projections: Daily Faceoff's Utah page, updated Sunday morning, has Logan Cooley with Vincent Trocheck and Dylan Guenther, and Clayton Keller with Nick Schmaltz and Lawson Crouse. The Mammoth PR game notes and projected lines for Tuesday weren't out when we wrote this.
Our pick
Utah 3, Minnesota 2. Utah is at home on two days' rest. Minnesota is on its fourth game in six days and rarely scores early, so we think Utah gets the first goal this time, and Utah hasn't lost a game in which it scored first. We don't expect a 5-4 night against Wallstedt and a team that allows the third-fewest goals in the league, which is why the score is low. We'd be wrong if Minnesota scores first. Then Utah's 3-4-0 meets the Wild's 6-0-2, and Utah needs a fourth comeback against a team that has given up five goals once all season.
Tusks up.
Sources: NHL API standings, schedules, club stats and team stats (through Oct. 26; last season's meetings from our schedule data); NHL play-by-play for every Utah and Minnesota game this season (first goals, records when scoring first and goals by period are our counts from it); the NHL's Game Summary and the Mammoth PR postgame notes for Oct. 24 (Vejmelka's 28 saves; the NHL box score lists 29, which doesn't add up); the Mammoth's game story on NHL.com by Catherine Bogart and The Week Ahead; Brogan Houston, Deseret News, Oct. 23; the Wild's game preview by Dylan Daniel and Kevin Woodley's recap on NHL.com; Daily Faceoff's projected lines for Utah (Oct. 25) and Minnesota (Oct. 26), and its starting goalies page (Oct. 27); our Lightning recap and Vejmelka post.
Correction, Oct. 27: An earlier version said Minnesota was first in the West. Edmonton also has 18 points and has played a game fewer, so the Wild are second, per the NHL standings.