The Minnesota Wild will head to Nationwide Arena to take on the Columbus Blue Jackets for the 3rd time this season after winning the first two with the same score of 4-2 (one on road and one at home). The Wild who are now 25-19-8 and 8th in the West keep hopes at a playoff spot, but still they have to pass this crysis they are in and in the last period I think they are in the right direction, winning 3 of 5. Unfortunately they will have Latendresse, Bouchard, Koivu and Palmer out for this one, while Stoner is questionable. On the other side Columbus, 14-32-6, bottom of the Western Conference with no real pretention at anything this season, coming after a surprising win in Anaheim against the Ducks by 3-2 in overtime which snapped a not surprisng 6-game losing streak. Wisniewski, Letestu, Nikitin, Huselius, Martinek and Lebda will miss this one for the Jackets. The Wild need points and they are on the right track at the moment rounding up some in 4 of their last 5 games. With Koivu out of the line-up another leader has stepped up to help Minnesota, left wing Dany Heatley (17+21=38) who has played a role in these last 5 games in which he scored 4 goals and had another 4 assists. Minnesota is in the position right now in which they were at the start of the season where they were "roaring" with a very nice 17-4-0 period in which they also were missing some key players from the line-up. The Jackers are once again set with another long list of injuries, heading back home where they are 2nd worst (6-19-3, 56:64) in the league, with the weekest offense, losing 6 of their last 8. My pick in this meeting will be for the Minnesota Wild to win it by 2 or more goals counting the fact that they are a good team on road (12-12-5, 57:73), winning 2 of their last 3 games on foreign ground facing one of the weekest team overall in the league. Last but not least the Wild are better then the Jackets in mosty all important categories, offense, deffense, powerplay and penalty kill.

The New York Knicks (9-15), who have spent the season trying to find a point guard capable of running coach Mike D’Antoni’s system, have gotten a spark from Jeremy Lin in their last outing. Lin came off the bench to score a career-high 25 points, along with 7 assists and 5 rebounds in New York's 99-92 win over the New Jersey Nets on Saturday. This was just the third win for the Knicks in their last 14 games and third in their last seven at the Madison Square Garden, where they haven't been too impressive, winning just five of 12 matches. With a record of two wins and five losses, the Utah Jazz (13-9) haven't exactly been a hot road team, but they have been fairly decent overall, despite going just 3-2 in their last five. They are however coming off their best defensive performance in weeks, following a 96-87 win over the Los Angeles Lakers and the Jazz will definitely look to continue their solid performance, as they are set to play 13 of their next 18 games on the road. Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap combined for 34 points, 26 rebounds and 4 blocks against the Lakers and will have to put on yet another solid performance if Utah is to win this one. The Knicks have been in a slump as of late and their opponents will definitely want to capitalise on that. I reckon this one could pretty much go either way, that is why I'm going with the underdog.