The Minnesota Wild scored two first-period goals and got a 31-save effort from Filip Gustavsson to key a 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday in Toronto.

Squaring off with nearly identical records entering Wednesday’s contest, the Toronto Maple Leafs were presented with a key opportunity to get out of a rut against a quality Minnesota Wild team, with a four-game road trip on the horizon before the 4 Nations Face-Off break.

Identifying the holes in the Leafs' lineup is fairly straightforward. Patching them at the trade deadline? Much less so.

Rielly has two points in his last 11 games with Toronto and admitted after Wednesday's 3-1 loss to Minnesota that he needs to be better.

The Minnesota Wild have the league's best road record at 18-5-3 this season and have already beat the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier this season

BOTTOM LINE: The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Minnesota Wild hit the ice in a non-conference matchup. Toronto is 19-10-0 at home and 30-18-2 overall. The Maple Leafs have a 13-5-1 record when scoring a power-play goal.

You can look to John Tavares and Matthew Knies’ imminent returns and hope they can spark the lineup, but this is still a team with Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner. Offence should not be this difficult and they have the raw talent to at least make games interesting. Tonight was far from it.

The Minnesota Wild took down the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, 3-1.

That's Wild The Minnesota Wild started a very important road trip north of the border Wednesday night by visiting the Maple Leafs in Toronto. The Wild, who were 2-2-0 in their previous four games, have been just holding steady as they have suffered a dangerous injury bug.

The Wild have struggled since the injuries to these two occurred, winning just four of the 10 games since Brodin was injured, allowing 31.3 shots per game, and ranking 30th in GAA while allowing four or more goals in seven of the 10 outings.