The San Jose Sharks and the Minnesota Wild Drop the Puck on Thursday

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The San Jose Sharks and the Minnesota Wild Drop the Puck on Thursday

When the San Jose Sharks and the Minnesota Wild meet on the ice there will be some familiar faces on both sides.

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They open their four-game season series after splitting last season, the home team winning each game. That came on the heels of a Sharks sweep the season before. It will be the first time back in San Jose for two former Sharks, Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley, who along with their team carry a five-game winning streak into HP Pavilion.

The Wild added Setoguchi and Heatley to provide some offensive punch, sending Brett Burns and Martin Havlat to San Jose in separate deals, but it's the goalies who have them on a tear, their best since a franchise-record nine-game winning streak March 8-24, 2007. They're on the second of a five-game road trip. The Sharks have won seven of nine themselves and are 8-0-1 versus the Wild in their last nine games in the Shark Tank.

If you're not going to score, it's best to allow as few goals as possible. While the Wild's 2.21 goals per game place them among the League's weakest offenses, their defense is second-stingiest only to Edmonton's at 1.79 goals allowed per contest. And like Nikolai Khabibulin's dominance in the Oilers' net, Josh Harding and Niklas Backstrom have kept the goal opening shut tight.

Harding is supposed to be Backstrom's backup, but not many backups rattle off four wins in a row allowing three goals between them, earning him NHL First Star of the Week. Backstrom responded to the challenge with a 41-save performance and 3-0 shutout of the Flames on Tuesday. This, of course, leaves coach Mike Yeo with an embarrassment of riches in terms of who to start Thursday.

Looks like it's going to be like this all year. After meeting in the playoffs last season and upgrading their rosters over the summer, the two strongest teams in the Pacific Division clashed on Monday. When the buzzer sounded, it was the Sharks outmuscling and outscoring the Kings, 4-2 at HP Pavilion. After the Kings outshot them 14-7 in the first period, coach Todd McLellan had a few tweaks in mind.

The end result was a banner night for Dan Boyle, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, each of whom scored and combined for four assists, while Antti Niemi made 29 saves for his first home win of the season.

It will be interesting to see how these players react when they face off against their former team on the ice.