It appears as though the Minnesota Wild will start Josh Harding on Thursday night despite his absence on Wednesday from practice due to an illness. Niklas Backstrom has struggled of late with a 1-5 record, an .890 save percentage and 3.54 goals against average in his last six outings. Matt Hackett was brought up as a replacement if Harding was unable to go, but he'll end up out of uniform now for the contest.