Minnesota Wild vs. Florida Panthers: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 1/21/2023

Time: 6 p.m. ET

Venue: FLA Live Arena, Sunrise, FL

Where to watch: BSWIX, BSFLX, BSN

DraftKings: Panthers -115, Wild -105

FanDuel: Panthers -115, Wild -105

BetMGM: Panthers -115, Wild -105

Caesars: Panthers -115, Wild -105

Wild: 25-15-4

Panthers: 22-20-5

In a battle of teams trying to get their fourth win in five games, the Minnesota Wild will try to bounce back after a rough loss the other night and will face the Florida Panthers in sunrise on Saturday.

 

Minnesota is coming off a 5-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday in a game where fieldsman story was Carolina losing a very important player on their roster, but Minnesota also getting blitzed by a team that really they should have matched up a lot better with this time around.

 

Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy scored for Minnesota, but Marc-Andre Fleury gave up five goals on 29 shots in another inconsistent effort for the Wild. Even though we can look at this as a game where Minnesota really didn't bring its best effort, Minnesota is still very entrenched in the central division race as they are just five points back with two games in hand of second place against the Winnipeg Jets, and three games in hand from the first place Dallas Stars.

 

"It put us on our heels," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "Then we still get through it and still played well, but [the penalties] kept coming. Obviously, they get enough looks and they're going to score some goals."

 

Minnesota is a weird bunch in which you can look at either which way and see that they can find different ways to win games. They could get good contending one night, or they could get an eclectic amount of goals scored that night. No matter which way, Minnesota has the firepower to keep things simple and I have no doubt they will attempt to do that tonight.

 

Meanwhile, the Panthers have been in a rut to where they can't find any string of consistency as of late. But given the fact that Florida has won three games out of four on two different occasions over the last couple of weeks, maybe this is the time the Florida starts to get things rolling. Just not in front of the Montreal Canadiens like they were the other night.

 

Florida is coming off a 6-2 victory over the Canadians on Thursday which we over easily cleared and what was a rather interesting game. Sam Reinhart had a goal and two assists, and Sam Bennett added a goal and an assists for the Panthers. Florida still finds itself four points back of a playoff spot having played two more games than the Pittsburgh Penguins, so the margin for error is very slim at this current point in time.

 

"We had good patience on our power play tonight because it was a big adjustment from the last time we played them," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.

 

That would normally intend on the side of home ice advantage in this game, especially one that has happened more recently than the other. Still on the line for this game, I'm gonna play it safe and take the home team a game like this. Panthers 4, Wild 3

Wild are 6-1 in their last 7 after scoring 2 goals or less last game.

Wild are 5-1 in their last 6 Saturday games.

Panthers are 4-1 in the last 5 meetings.

Kirill Kaprizov -- Sam Steel -- Mats Zuccarello

Matt Boldy -- Frederick Gaudreau -- Ryan Hartman

Marcus Foligno -- Joel Eriksson Ek -- Jordan Greenway

Brandon Duhaime -- Connor Dewar -- Ryan Reaves

Jake Middleton -- Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin -- Alex Goligoski

Jon Merrill -- Calen Addison

Filip Gustavsson

Anton Lundell -- Aleksander Barkov -- Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe -- Sam Bennett -- Matthew Tkachuk

Grigori Denisenko -- Eetu Luostarinen -- Nick Cousins

Ryan Lomberg -- Eric Staal -- Givani Smith

Gustav Forsling -- Aaron Ekblad

Marc Staal -- Brandon Montour

Josh Mahura -- Radko Gudas

Sergei Bobrovsky