Opening Night is tonight at 8 p.m. against the Colorado Avalanche.
This afternoon at 2 o'clock, I will be hosting a live chat on startribune.com/wild to preview the season. Please join, and if you arrive early, you can leave questions early.
I will also be on KFAN with Dan Barreiro previewing the season at 3:30 p.m. and on Fox Sports North's hourlong pregame show around 7:40 p.m.
Remember, the game is being televised on NBC Sports Network (play-by-play man John Forslund was stuck in a stuffy St. Paul elevator for 70 minutes yesterday, but luckily, he escaped and will be on the mic and Pierre McGuire) and broadcast on KFAN (100.3-FM, with Bob Kurtz, Tom Reid, and ugh, Kevin Falness on the call).
If you have the ability, please try to pick up today's Star Tribune for our Wild preview. Great pics by the talented Carlos Gonzalez, design by Bob Timmons and the rest of the Strib team and editing by Chris Miller, who has the unenviable job of having to read my copy daily and worse yet, communicate with me!
BUT, to make things easier, here are some of the links that you can find on the Star Tribune Wild page above.
Kid-Friendly: Wild counting on ascending youngsters Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle, Nino Niederreiter, Jonas Brodin and Erik Haula.
My FOUR big keys to season success for the Wild
My notebook on Darcy Kuemper starting opener over Nik Backstrom, the fact coach Mike Yeo has tons of shootout choice and Matt Dumba and Christian Folin being a pair.
VIDEO of Michael Rand and I, in our cool shades, previewing the season.
Jim Souhan's column on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter
VIDEO of the Wild unveiling its massive scoreboard to the media yesterday
My game preview, which I put in part as my annual reminder that I do a game preview box before every game and it's on there where you can ALWAYS get the answer to the question, "What channel is the game on?"
Again, if you missed yesterday's paper, I did a feature on Matt Cooke playing the Avs for the first time, a story on Kyle Brodziak and also my NHL preview and predictions.
Tonight's Wild lines are expected to be:
Forwards
Zach Parise-Mikael Granlund-Jason Pominville
Matt Cooke-Mikko Koivu-Thomas Vanek
Nino Niederreiter-Erik Haula-Charlie Coyle
Jason Zucker-Kyle Brodziak-Ryan Carter
Defensemen
Ryan Suter-Jonas Brodin
Marco Scandella-Jared Spurgeon
Matt Dumba-Christian Folin
Goalies
Darcy Kuemper
Niklas Backstrom
Extras: Stu Bickel, Keith Ballard, Justin Fontaine (the last two are banged up), Nate Prosser
I'll be back later to update this blog after the morning skates.