Mikko Koivu questionable to face the Tampa Bay Lightning

Afternoon from the Sunshine State, where the Wild held a short, brisk practice today at the (former) Ice Palace. I'll be on KFAN at 4:30 p.m. CT today.

Mike Yeo's Wild visits Jon Cooper's Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night for the first of a two-game father-son trip that continues to South Florida, where the Wild plays America's team, the Florida Panthers.

Speaking of the Panthers, anybody notice Nick Bjugstad lately? What a trip to Cali. Two goals, two assists the other night in Anaheim, and last night he scored twice at San Jose plus the shootout deciding goal.

Thirty-four guests – dads, brothers, mentors, fathers-in-law – of Wild players, coaches and staff are here on the Gulf coast of Fla.

"Our challenge is to make sure that we've got our focus," said Yeo, whose team is riding a four-game winning streak and defeated the Lightning, 7-2, at home 3 ½ weeks ago. "We want our players to enjoy their time with them, we want it to be a special trip. It's a special trip if you win. I've been on a lot of these, and it's a big difference when you get wins. But the challenge is the focus."

As I mentioned yesterday, the Wild doesn't have a history of winning on these types of trips. Maybe the dads should threaten to ground em or something.

Captain Mikko Koivu missed practice today because he's still under the weather. Koivu only played 1:10 of the third period in Philadelphia and sat on the bench the rest of the third period. He stayed there in case the game went to a shootout apparently.

Watching the game over again last night before my 45-minute, uh, nap before my flight, he lacked energy almost all over the ice. On the one power-play turnover to start the third (he crossed a bad pass along the blue line to spoil the rest of the advantage), you could see the frustration as he turned to retreat.

Yeo said he saw Koivu at the hotel this morning and just told him to stay away today and rest up and hopefully he'll be available Saturday.

Yeo said there's a chance. "I'm definitely not ready to rule him out. Still no swollen jaws or anything like that, which is good. But still he's under the weather."

If Koivu can't play tomorrow, we'll see the lines at the morning skate. In practice today, Yeo just slotted Kyle Brodziak into Mikael Granlund's spot and Granlund into Koivu's, but that may have just been to not disrupt the other lines in case Koivu can play.

We shall see, but as of now, the Zach Parise-Granlund-Jason Pominville line has been reunited. After combining for the winning goal last night, Thomas Vanek-Charlie Coyle-Jason Zucker stayed intact today. Watching the game again, Coyle was as good as Yeo described afterward. And frankly, that confidence seemed to filter into today's practice because ChAHlie was flying.

Interestingly, from the NHL, Zucker is the sixth player to tally a go-ahead goal in the final minute of regulation time this season, all of which have come on the road. The other late winners were scored by Montreal's Tomas Plekanec (19:17, Oct. 8 at TOR), Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf (19:36, Oct. 11 at DET), Colorado's Daniel Briere (19:59, Oct. 13 at BOS), Dallas' Tyler Seguin (19:57, Oct. 16 at PIT) and Columbus' Mark Letestu (19:39, Oct. 23 at SJ)

With Granlund back between Parise and Pominville, Brodziak centered Nino Niederreiter and Justin Fontaine at least in practice and Erik Haula and Ryan Carter skated with Stu Bickel, who only played three shifts last night. But Yeo likes having the Bickel element in the lineup and then he can limit his shifts and alternate one of the forwards on that line during every rotation.

That line with Haula, Carter and a third forward had some real good shifts last night.

Really, not much more going on. Scandella continues to impress. He already has a career high four goals and Yeo talked today about how every year he just adds a new part to his game without losing the other parts. So slowly but surely, Scandella added the consistency, then being a force in the defensive game. Now he's adding the offense. Yeo said he'll continue to get more power-play time and "we'll keep pushing him to grow. He's showing that he's becoming a heck of an NHL defenseman."