Five things to watch for in local sports this week

• The Timberwolves are just 3-6 at Target Center this season compared to 5-2 on the road — a puzzling early home-road split. They'll get a chance to pad the good side of that ledger, with six of their next seven games on the road, including Monday night at Atlanta.

• The Wild, on the other hand, has been much better at home (5-1-2) than on the road (4-10-1), but obviously there have been few opportunities to flex that Xcel Energy Center advantage. After back-to-back road games against the Rangers and Devils on Monday and Tuesday, Minnesota finally gets two more home games Friday (Ottawa) and Sunday (Dallas) as it tries to climb out of an early hole.

• If your default is to complain about the Gophers men's hockey schedule in the modern Big Ten era vs. the old WCHA, this season might challenge that. The Big Ten has plenty of good teams, and more important, the Gophers are taking on a lot of old rivals — including North Dakota in a home series that starts on Thanksgiving Day and concludes Friday.

• The job of those who set betting lines in Las Vegas is to encourage a lot of action on both sides, not to worry about who is getting proper respect. Still, it was a little strange to see Wisconsin as a three-point favorite for Saturday's game at TCF Bank Stadium. We'll see how much that line moves as the Game of the Century gets closer.

• The Vikings technically don't play until next week, but the Monday night game at Seattle is about as big as it gets for both perceptions and reality. Any realistic chance the Vikings have of winning the NFC North (and perhaps even getting a first-round bye) probably involves winning a very tough road game.