EAGLE, COLO. — With one week to go before the Wild open the regular season in Nashville, the Wild are suddenly auditioning another player in the second-line center position.



It sounds like the Ryan Donato experiment in that role is over for now as coach Bruce Boudreau has returned to his thinking prior to training camp and is now giving Luke Kunin a look in the spot.



Kunin, who played center last season after Mikko Koivu was injured and during Iowa’s postseason, is expected to center Zach Parise and Mats Zuccarello in Thursday night’s exhibition game against the Dallas Stars.



The lineup tweaking in the past two practices came after Donato had a rough game Sunday night in Denver and hasn’t produced at center during training camp.



“I thought he felt way more comfortable on the wing. It’s like something’s off his back,” Boudreau said of Donato, who played center growing up but mostly wing as a pro.