TORONTO - Filip Gustavsson made 31 saves as the Minnesota Wild edged Toronto 3-1 on Wednesday, sending the Maple Leafs to a third straight regulation loss.

Jared Spurgeon scored what turned out to be the winning goal in the first period and the visiting Minnesota Wild went on to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 on Wednesday night.

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

Ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs' game on Wednesday against the Minnesota Wild, there are reports of a heavy scout presence in the arena raising trade speculation.

Welcome back to NHL Predictions. Each day, Last Word on Hockey takes a look at the games that are scheduled and offers insight and analysis to help predict who will be victorious in head-to-head matchups.

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.

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.