Haula, Brodin, Cooke out vs. San Jose; Kuemper looks for bounceback; Falk on Rangers time

Wild and San Jose Sharks tonight at Xcel Energy Center.

Darcy Kuemper, after giving up cinco in the third period Monday in Nueva York, will get a chance to put that behind him and bounce back tonight vs. Brent Burns, Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Company. Since 2007-08, Sharks are 326-157-68, best in the NHL.

I was hoping to see local product Alex Stalock in net tonight, but Adam Wilcox's cuz will be backing up Antti Niemi for the third consecutive game.

Home team has won 15 of the past 16 games in this series, with the Wild beating San Jose six straight games at home. In those six games though, the Sharks have outshot the Wild by a cool hundred.

The Wild has outshot its opponent in all eight games this season (274-181), averaging the second-most shots per game (34.2) and allowing the fewest (22.6) in the NHL. If you have been living in a hole, the Wild's power play is 0 for 26. It will try to avoid being 0 for October tonight. If it fails to score, it will be a franchise-record ninth consecutive game without a power-play tally.

Watch the Wild defensemen tonight. They continue to jump up into the attack. In eight games, six goals (on 77 shots), 19 points and PLUS-30. In the first eight games last year, Wild defensemen were plus-0.

Wild, by the way, give up a league-low 22.6 shots per game. The Sharks rank 23^rd at 32 shots allowed per game.

Defenseman Jonas Brodin and center Erik Haula will each miss their second straight games tonight, and left wing Matt Cooke will also be out with a lower-body injury. Coach Mike Yeo said that Cooke, who has one goal, three assists and is plus-4 in the past three games, has been dealing with this for a few games and the team is giving him a chance to rest and get better.

We'll see if this affects a fourth line that has scored seven goals and nine assists the past six games (plus-8, 19 shots).

Defenseman Christian Folin skated this morning and said his mumps test was negative. The hope is with a good practice Friday that he'll be able to play Saturday against Dallas. However, defenseman Keith Ballard is still sick and went for more bloodwork yesterday to try to get to the bottom of what's ailing him.

Haula participating in today's morning skate. Brodin skated for about 20 minutes alone before the skate, didn't shoot any pucks and seemed to be testing and struggling at times with his stick-handling. As I mentioned after the Rangers game, a couple fingers on one of his hands were wrapped pretty good.

Still, Yeo is hopeful that Brodin and Haula can return Saturday.

So, same lineup tonight except for Veilleux's insertion:

Parise-Granlund-Pominville

Zucker-Koivu-Coyle

Vanek-Brodziak-Nino

Veilleux-Carter-Fontaine

Suter-Spurgeon

Scandella-Prosser

Falk-Dumba

Haula said he's feeling a little better, although not 100 percent.

Haula said John Moore, the perpetrator of the Monday's hit to the head, called him Tuesday after getting his number from Justin Falk.

Haula said the organization is just trying to be careful with him even though he is anxious to play. He said head injuries can't be taken lightly and noted that Tony Lucia and Jay Barriball both had their careers cut short because of head issues.

Haula said Barriball texted him.

"He said, "Don't force it, please,' basically. That's just the main message I have gotten from everyone, to be smart no matter how anxious I am to play. Don't push it. It's only Game 9. Long ways to go."

On the hit, Haula said, "Hits happen like that. It's part of the game. They're trying to take that away, but it's going to happen sometimes. I was lucky it wasn't worse."

On Kuemper, Yeo said he wants to see him bounce back.

Personally, I feel Matt Dumba could be coming when Folin returns. Yeo even subtly alluded to it today. The turnovers have been a little erratic and the Wild has so far overcome them.

We're putting him in some tough spots.

"I do want to see improvement," Yeo said. "He's always been an impactful player. He's always been a guy who makes great plays, but he has to understand there's times to make great plays and times to make good plays. What you want to do is make sure that by trying to make a great play when it's not there that you're not making a bad play.

"I want him to continue to do some of the things he's doing, but as he continues to do those things, gets rid of the bad plays. That's how he's going to get better, that's how he's going to stay with us."

I didn't even pick up on Yeo's last line ("stay with us") until I transcribed.

He also won 8 of 13 draws, which is big for a Wild team that hasn't been good on the draw this year. Granlund going up against top drawman has been mostly bad. Same with Haula and Carter.

Koivu is the only one above 50 percent, and he's still way below his norm.

The Wild ranks 29^th in the faceoff circle after finishing 12^th last year.

Falk is excited to make his home debut two days after his season debut. The Wild traded him to the Rangers at the 2013 draft. He only played 21 games last season and was a routine healthy scratch after playing 128 NHL games for the Wild in parts of four previous years.

He had to be Dumba's safety net against the Bruins and also made the play that led to the tying goal.

Zach Parise by the way got the "shoelace" taken out of his face yesterday and restitched. The old stitches honestly looked like a Hollywood makeup job. It was the thickest stitches I have ever seen, hence the shoelace joke Parise made.