The Minnesota Wild will travel to Buffalo, New York to face the Buffalo Sabres at the KeyBank Center on Friday evening with the game scheduled to start at 7:00 PM ET and will air on the MSG Buffalo station.

Minnesota has struggled to start the season as they enter this game with a record of 5-6-1 and saw their two-game winning streak come to an end on Thursday following a 1-4 loss on the road against the New York Rangers. The Wild have been one of the worst teams at limiting scoring from their opponents as they are allowing the 3^rd most goals per game in the NHL this season with an average of 4.08 goals per game, however, they have also been one of the highest-scoring teams as they are averaging 3.67 goals per game which ranks 8^th in the league. Joel Eriksson Ek has been one of the pivotal players offensively this season as he leads the team in points and is tied for the team lead in goals with 13 points and 7 goals this season. However, both goalies for the Minnesota Wild have save percentages below .900 and Filip Gustavsson has been the worst of the two as he is allowing an average of 4.89 goals per game this season with a .871 save percentage and will be the starting goalie for the Wild when they travel to face the Buffalo Sabres on Friday.

The Buffalo Sabres have been one of the more inconsistent teams in the early part of the season as they have alternated wins and losses in every game this year and if that holds in this matchup that means they will win as they lost in their last game in overtime against the Carolina Hurricanes on the road by a score of 2-3. Buffalo has been a slightly below-average team in the league when it comes to scoring goals as they are averaging 3.15 goals per game which is below the 3.17 league average while allowing 3.15 goals per game which is slightly better than the league average. Devon Levi has been the worst of the three goalies that the Sabres have started this season as he has a record of 2-3 and is allowing an average of 3.41 goals per game which doesn’t bode well as the Sabres will host one of the highest-scoring teams this season in the NHL in the Minnesota Wild.

BookMaker has the Buffalo Sabres listed as -120 moneyline favorites at home against the Minnesota Wild on Friday. Buffalo is 6-3-1 in the last ten and 2-0-1 in the last three meetings. The Wild have outscored the Sabres by an average of 3.6 to 3.3 goals per game over the last ten while the Sabres have won by an average margin of .33 goals per game over the last three games in the series.

Both goalies have been below average this season as Filip Gustavsson is allowing an average of 4.89 goals per game with a save percentage of .871 while Devon Levi is allowing an average of 3.41 goals per game with a save percentage of .885. With the way the goalies have struggled this season, it matches up with how the trend in the series has gone as the over has hit in two of the last three meetings which is why I am taking the over 6.5 goals in this matchup on Friday evening.