Joel Eriksson Ek had a feeling since last spring that his young teammate, Matt Boldy, would take a leap forward this year as an offensive playmaker.
Only one game has passed, but so far Eriksson Ek’s prediction is looking good.
Boldy tallied a goal and two assists in the Wild’s season-opening, 3-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night. The 23-year-old will look to stay hot when the Wild host the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
“Just watching the end of last year, you could really tell what he’s become and what he’s becoming,” Eriksson Ek said. “I think he’s — I don’t want to pump his tires too much, but I said it before — I think he might be close to 100 points at some point in his career.
“He’s just so smart and so big and so strong. He loves hockey, too. So it’s just fun to watch him and share the ice with him.”
As the Wild look to make it back-to-back wins, the Kraken hope to bounce back from a 3-2 loss at home against the St. Louis Blues in their season opener.
Vince Dunn and Eeli Tolvanen scored for Seattle in the season opener. A trio of Kraken players including Jaden Schwartz, Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour each finished with no points and a minus-2 rating.
Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer is expected to get a second start in net after allowing three goals on 25 shots against St. Louis. The 32-year-old from Germany went 14-16-2 with a 2.85 goals-against average and an .899 save percentage in 36 games last season.
In 17 career games against the Wild, Grubauer is 9-7-0 with a 2.95 GAA and an .894 save percentage. He was sharp against Minnesota last season, stopping 17 of 18 shots in his only action against the team.
Seattle coach Dan Bylsma plans to shuffle a couple of his lines heading into Game 2. Highly touted center Shane Wright will join a line alongside Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann, and center Matty Beniers will join Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand.
Bylsma said Wright excelled on his previous line in the season opener but he wanted to try different alignments, especially early in the season, to see who clicked the best.
“I think you should be comfortable seeing changes happen in the future, as well,” Bylsma said. “It’s not a finished product, and we’re going to go through some different things, injuries and whatnot. We have to find lines and combinations that work regardless of situations.”
Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury is expected to make the first start of his 21st season. The 39-year-old ranks second in NHL history with 561 victories, and he ranks fourth with 1,025 games played.
This will be Fleury’s ninth career game against Seattle. He is 5-2-1 with a 2.11 GAA and a .930 save percentage in his first eight meetings.
The Wild and Kraken faced off against one another three times last season, with Minnesota winning two games and Seattle winning one. The Wild outscored the Kraken 11-6 in those three games.
–Field Level Media