Darcy Kuemper will be the Wild's opening night starter against Nathan MacKinnon, Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Jarome Iginla and the rest of the defending Central Division champion Colorado Avalanche.
Afternoon from Xcel Energy Center. If you want to talk Wild with me, please join my live chat on www.startribune.com/wild on Thursday at 2 p.m. I'll also be on KFAN at 3:30 p.m. and on Fox Sports North at 7:40 p.m.
Remember, the 8 p.m. game is on NBC Sports Network, but Fox Sports North will have an hour pregame show.
Over on the startribune.com/wild page, you can find my NHL preview, a story on Matt Cooke facing the Avs for the first time since his knee-on-knee hit on Colorado defenseman Tyson Barrie in last year's playoffs and story on how Kyle Brodziak will try his best to tune out trade rumors this season and improve offensively.
In Thursday's Star Tribune, our Wild preview, which includes a big piece on Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle, Jonas Brodin, Erik Haula and Nino Niederreiter, my 4 keys to this season, a notebook on Kuemper starting, a Jim Souhan column and a whole lot more.
Kuemper gets the start. Last year's Game 3, 4, and 6 winner (three goals allowed) against Colorado went 2-0 in the preseason in three appearances with a 2.20 goals-against average and .915 save percentage.
Niklas Backstrom went 1-1 in three games with a 2.42 goals-against average and .908 save percentage.
Coach Mike Yeo said it's "to be determined" whether Backstrom starts Saturday's game at Colorado, "but we don't want him sitting around for a long time. Based on his history in that building, based on the fact that we play two games and don't play for a week after that, I would say in a perfect world, that's what we would do. But we don't always operate that way either."
