Despite a reasonably strong effort in trying to defend last year's tournament title, the Minnesota Wild finished round-robin play at the 2011 NHL Prospects Tournament 1-2-0 (good for 3rd in the Howe Division), and were slated to face-off against the Dallas Stars, who matched Minnesota's 1-2-0 for 3rd place in the Gretzky Division. The two Western Conference foes faced off for 5th place in this year's tournament. The Wild would do so without a pair of first-round draft picks, center Zack Phillips (2011) and defenseman Tyler Cuma (2008), who were scratches for the contest (no word on if either scratch was due to injury).
