Throughout the course of a season, players that have been traded or signed elsewhere in free agency will skate against former teammates, and this process plays out hundreds of times. Tonight's game at the Xcel Energy Center will be a bit different -- as Marc-Andre Fleury's last game with the Pittsburgh Penguins was nearly five years ago. Nevertheless, for one of the newest members of the Minnesota Wild, there will be a lot of familiar faces wearing flightless birds on their sweaters tonight.
Beyond any familiarity between Fleury, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and others, this matchup is a true gem among the nine on the schedule.