Four injured forwards forcing Wild to improvise lineup vs. Kraken

The Wild will have a different look to their lineup on Thursday night against the Kraken at Xcel Energy Center, dressing only 11 forwards and seven defensemen amid a rash of injuries up front.

Brandon Duhaime suffered an upper-body injury in the 4-1 win vs. the Canadiens on Tuesday and won't face Seattle. Neither will fellow forwards Marcus Foligno, Jordan Greenway and Ryan Hartman. All three are also dealing with upper-body injuries.

Instead of calling up a player from the minors, the Wild will usher Alex Goligoski into action. The defenseman has been idle for the last six games, not suiting up since he appeared in his 1,000th career game on Oct. 20.

After this game, the Wild won't play next until Tuesday when the team begins a three-game, West Coast road trip at Los Angeles.

"We've mapped out a plan, and things adjust from there," coach Dean Evason said. "No different than we map out who's going to play 4-on-4, who's going to play 3-on-3, who's going to play power play, penalty kill. In game, we adjust in between periods. We adjust on the bench, so we've got a thought process of who we think will slide there. One guy can't do it; that's a lot of ice for one player.

"But in game we'll discuss it. I'll communicate with all the coaches to see what we're seeing and who we feel can slide into that spot."

Projected lineup:

Kirill Kaprizov-Frederick Gaudreau-Mats Zuccarello

Mason Shaw-Joel Eriksson Ek-Matt Boldy

Marco Rossi-Tyson Jost

Sam Steel-Connor Dewar-Steven Fogarty

Jake Middleton-Jared Spurgeon

Jonas Brodin-Calen Addison

Jon Merrill-Matt Dumba

Alex Goligoski

Marc-Andre Fleury

Key numbers:

2: Wins in three games for the Wild vs. the Kraken last season.

2-0-1: Record for goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in his career against Seattle.

5: Multi-point games for Kirill Kaprizov.

8: Goals for Kaprizov, which is tied for third in the NHL.

10: Power play goals for the Wild in 10 games.

Pregame statistics and betting line

About the Kraken:

Seattle kicked off its three-game road trip with a 5-4 win at Calgary on Tuesday. That improved the Kraken to 5-4-2. On the road, they're 3-1-1. Rookie Matty Beniers is on a five-game point streak. His nine points overall are most among NHL rookies. "This is not the Seattle Kraken from last year," Evason said. "We'll obviously reinforce it with video and show how they're scoring goals, and then clearly we'll show how we feel that we can take advantage of some areas that we can play for us to score goals as well."