Moulson, McCormick ready for Wild debuts tonight in Dallas

Afternoon from American Airlines Center, where the Wild and Dallas Stars play tonight.

It'll be Minnesota's first game since Monday, so it'll be interesting to see how quickly players can adjust to the speed from the outset. Different playing than in practice.

It's Mike Modano Night here at the Hanger. I wrote about No. 9 in today's paper, so check that out here. Virtually everybody who's anybody from Dallas and Minnesota North Stars history will be in the sold-out barn as Modano's No. 9 rises to the rafters. He'll join Neal Broten (No. 7), Bill Goldsworthy (No. 8) and Bill Masterton (No. 19) with banners on the rafters. Broten's in the house, as are members of the family of Goldsworthy and Masterton. The ceremony starts at 6 p.m. and will be live on Fox Sports North.

Wild's excited to play again and players were loose this morning going into a big game against the team five points behind in the standings.

Ilya Bryzgalov, already a beauty among teammates, comically came out of the locker room and asked GM Chuck Fletcher if he were a forward or defenseman growing up, would Fletcher have drafted him. Fletcher said, "Probably not." Bryzgalov was blown away: "6-3, 214 pounds, I'd probably be a 70- or 80-point guy."

Said Erik Haula, who humorously had his stall between the two goalies at the morning skate, just said, "Bryz is a funny guy."

Darcy Kuemper will make his 16^th consecutive start tonight. He's 11-2-2 since Jan. 7 with a 1.95 goals-against average and .934 save percentage. It's no sure thing, coach Mike Yeo said, but there's a "good chance" Bryzgalov will start his first game with the Wild on Sunday against the St. Louis Blues. The Wild has a 2 ½-hour flight home after the game, loses an hour because of the daylight savings change and the puck drop is less than 24 hours after the start of tonight's game.

First things first, tonight. The Wild has lost 18 of its past 19 games in Dallas (1-13-5). This is a house of horrors.

Matt Moulson has no clue about that. It was hysterical listening to him talk about how much confidence he has playing in Dallas. I've never heard a Wild player say that in my life.

But Moulson has seven goals and 10 points in eight career game against Dallas and seven points in four career games in Dallas, including a career-high four-goal game in Dec. 2011. His first game with the Sabres, last game with the Sabres and first game with the Wild will come against the Stars, so he says it's "familiar."

"It's exciting to play against the team you're battling with for position and to get into games that mean a lot," Moulson said, a reference to the Sabres being out of it. "I had a little taste of that last year (with the Islanders) and it'll be good to get back into it this year."

Cody McCormick will also make his Wild debut, while Justin Fontaine and Nate Prosser are the scratches.

Said Yeo: "I mean it's going to be tough every game. We've got seven guys who are healthy and who are playing well. That's what I told (Clayton Stoner) last game. I didn't want to just get in a situation where we just scratch one guy repeatedly. So, if we have to rotate things a little bit here, we have a lot of games coming up in a not a lot of time, so we're going to need everybody healthy. We're going to need everybody on top of our game. So we get (Stoner) back in and (Prosser) out tonight and then there's obviously a good chance (Prosser) will get back in tomorrow. We're not going to be in a situation where we just repeatedly sit somebody night after night. If everybody keeps performing the way that we have, then we'll keep getting everybody in. We'll make sure everybody stays on top of our game. Like I said, I think it's something like 20 days in 37 days. There's going to be plenty of opportunity for everybody there."

On Fontaine being scratched, Yeo said it hurts him that he's not on power play or penalty kill.

"I think more than anything else, I'm not disappointed with (Fontaine) but truth be told, Heater's outperformed him in this last little bit. We've got a new guy that I want to get him in the lineup (McCormick). I want to blend his physical presence into our game, so it's kind of that how's you end up finding yourself out in that situation."

On McCormick, Yeo said, "We have come into this building and not shown enough of a physical presence and I think he's going to help us with that. That's part of why Stonie's in there too, but that said, I think it's a good opportunity for him to start to get to understand our game, start to get familiar with our system and the players that he's playing with, so yeah, we have to give him that chance for sure."

On how he'll decide which of his power-play units will go out first, "We've got two good units. Obviously, if a line's out there, Mikko's line's out there for 30 seconds and they draw a penalty, the other line will go. But otherwise, it'll be a bit of a rotation. It might be a bit of who's going and who's not. We got two units that we consider No. 1 units and so, right now it's only about the team. This is not about individuals. This is not about anything other than our group and winning hockey games, and so if you're splitting a power play and each group's getting a minute, then there's really no benefit to one group going out first. Quite often you could actually have the benefit of going out second because you're not getting the top penalty killing unit off the hop too, so we're just going to rotate it pretty much and whoever is going is going."

Wild's lines:

Parise-Granlund-Pominville

Moulson-Koivu-Coyle

Cooke-Brodziak-Niederreiter

Heatley-Haula-McCormick

Scandella-Brodin

Stoner-Ballard

Kuemper

Bryzgalov

Stars lines:

Erik Cole - Cody Eakin – Alex Chiasson

Antoine Roussel – Vernon Fiddler – Ryan Garbutt

Ray Whitney – Shawn Horcoff - Valeri Nichuskin

Alex Goligoski – Trevor Daley

Jordie Benn – Brenden Dillon

Kari Lehtonen