Today's News

Mikko Koivu will be out at least a week with a knee injury; he didn't travel with the team today.
Derek Boogaard also stayed behind on this road trip with an upper body injury.


Photo By Craig Lassig, Associated Press - Ap

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A Win at a High Cost

Obviously I was too lazy after yesterday's afternoon game to post my postgamer so I'm doing it now...

The Wild and Niklas Backstrom shutout the Edmonton Oilers 3-0 yesterday afternoon to move into a tie with Anaheim for ninth place (with Anaheim getting the nod over the Wild with more wins), but it comes at a high price. After the return of Marian Gaborik to the ice since before Christmas break, the Wild lose another important piece to the team in their loss of their captain Mikko Koivu. After coming out of the penalty box, Koivu collided in the offensive zone with an Oilers player, and fell awkwardly. Koivu played the rest of the first period, and part of the second, but did not return for the third period. And it must be serious because the team said that this is a knee injury and not the famous lower body injury term that they've coined this season, but Koivu will be reevaluated today before the team heads out to New York.

So...Koivu's injury overshawdowed a great win for the Wild, an important win for the team. Though they didn't get a great start to the game being outshot by the Oilers 15-2 in the first period, but they came back with a franchise record 23 shots in the 2nd period (isn't that usually their shot total for a game), with Owen Nolan getting first goal on the powerplay by going to the net and getting his own rebound. The Wild built up their lead in the third when Nolan again went to the net and got a great feed from James Sheppard to get the two goal lead. And then Stephane Veilleux scored...well sort of...Veilleux was the closest to the play when Tom Gilbert's pass deflected off of Sam Gagner's skate an past Dwayne Roloson, but I guess when you're a scoring like Veilleux has lately, it'll go in for him. But isn't it refreshing that the Wild had a 3-0 lead, and not trailing by 3-0? Oh...and Gaborik was back and on the ice for 17:43, had 24 shifts, and 6 shots.

Veilleux's Goal


Notes:

• Colton Gilles, Craig Weller, and Peter Olvecky were the healthy scratches; Marek Zidlicky is day-to-day with a lower body injury and Brent Burns is still out with concussion like symptoms.
• Backstrom got his franchise record 16th career shutout, and a franchise record 12th shutout at home, both surpassing...Dwayne Roloson, who now has surpassed Roberto Luongo for most losses against the Wild.
  
• I read the TaR article on SI.com about overrated coaches in the NHL and Jacques Lemaire was named...it was just a small snippet in an NY Post article by Larry Brooks...maybe I drink too much of the kool-aid that the Wild offer, but IMO Lemaire is the only reason why the Wild have been as competitive as they've been, especially early on in their history.
  

UP NEXT: Friday @ New York Rangers, 6:00pm CT (this one is going to be dubbed as Marian Gaborik vs. the New York Rangers and we'll see lots of replay of the 5 goal game leading up to it...but I doubt that this time Gaby's going to get 5 goals again)

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Games to Watch this Week

Sunday, March 22
New Jersey Devils vs. Boston Bruins, 2:00pm CT

Monday, March 23
New Jersey Devils vs. Philadelphia Flyers, 6:00pm CT
Detroit Red Wings vs. Calgary Flames, 8:30pm CT

Saturday, March 28
Buffalo Sabres vs. Montreal Canadiens, 6:00pm CT

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Devils Hand Wild a 4-0 Loss for Brodeur's 101st Career Shutout

Every game now for the Wild is a critical game and the outcome is either a crucial game won or, in this case, a frustrating blow. And that was what came out of this 4-0 loss to the Devils, FRUSTRATION. After playing a "safe" first period, which saw a total of 10 shots (6-Devils, 4-Wild), Zidlicky (as Russo described it) executed a gorgeous, blind backhanded pass in front of the net, too bad it went right to Patrik Elias who got it past Niklas Backstrom for the 1-0 lead. The Devils took a 2-0 lead 20 seconds when Brian Gionta scored after killing off a Johnny Odyua penalty when Zidlicky ill-advisedly stepped up in the offensive zone and allowed Zach Parise and Gionta to have 2-on-1 with Martin Skoula "backchecking". And a little over a minute later Odyua scored to give the Devils the 3-0 lead, and drove Backstrom out of the net as Harding came in to replace him. The Devils eventually made it 4-0 when Elias scored his second goal of the game on the powerplay with Nick Schultz in the penalty box.

I think that this has been the most frustrated that I've been with the Wild since I've been following them. When did it become commonplace that they fall behind their opponents so often. At the beginning of the season, it was the powerplay that was helping the Wild win games when they couldn't score 5-on-5, and now at this point in the season when they still can't score 5-on-5, the powerplay hasn't been able to generate any offense either. The powerplay may have essentially cost the Wild this game. On a night where the Wild ended up 0 for 7 on their powerplay opportunities, and they had 5 consecutive powerplay, 2 back-to-back opportunities, the Wild were not able to capitalize on their man advantage. And as I like to point out, if their opponents want to take that march to the penalty box, you have to make them pay for it, and the Wild were just not able to do anything on the powerplay tonight, or anything during the game for that matter.

Some quotes from tonight's game via Russo:
"We couldn't come up with nothing. Nothing!" Lemaire said.
"[Mistakes] have haunted us all year and [they] continue to haunt us," veteran Andrew Brunette said.

Notes:

• Stats from the game: Skoula -3, Zidlicky -2, Clutterbuck -2; Clutterbuck credited with 7 hits (14 total for the Wild), for a league leading 297
• The Wild have been down 3-0 to an opponent in 4 of the last 9 games , that's 5 of the last 9 that the Wild have been down at least 2-0 to an opponent.
• The Wild have allowed at least one powerplay goal in
  
• I don't know if I can watch this type of play from Zids for another year, sure he's good on the pp as a point man, and can score those goals, but he ends up putting more in the net against us than for us.
• With Edmonton defeating Chicago 5-4 in the SO and St. Louis defeating Calgary 3-2, the Wild have fallen to 12th place in the Western Conference.
  

UP NEXT: Sunday vs. Edmonton Oilers, 2:00pm CT (Gaby is aiming to return Sunday...let's see if he will be this "shot in the arm" that I keep hearing about, though it maybe too late)

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter

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Michael Farber SI Article

Just thought that I'd post the link to the SI article by Michael Farber about the Boy's High School Hockey Tournament. It's a pretty good read, and here's his interview with Falness.

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Avalanche, 2 vs. Wild, 3 SO

Mikko Koivu said that it may have been the biggest goal of the year so far for the team, it probably is the biggest goal in Nick Schultz's career (seeing as he only has 21 career goals in 7 seasons in the NHL), but it was the overall effort of the play that created the game-tying goal with 1:46 left in regulation that draws my praise. It was an unbelievable play (and great effort) by Eric Belanger to keep the puck from going over the blue line and getting it to Dan Fritsche, who eventually feed the puck to Schultz for his second goal of the season, and first since December 20 in St. Louis a span of 38 games. The Wild started the game out well, getting good scoring chances (a couple from Boogey), but after a good powerplay from the Wild when Cody McCormick took a penalty, the Avalanche turned on the pressure and were getting better scoring opportunities. The game went into the second with no scoring until Cody McLeod scored 9:21 into the second off of a Ben Guite wrap around. Stephane Veilleux scored 1:44 after McLeod tying the game at 1 when he tipped in a Martin Skoula shot from the point. Ryan Smyth scored almost 3 minutes after to give Colorado the one goal lead going into the third period, and then fans just got a sinking feeling going into the third look at the Avs stats: the Avs were 19-0-0 going into the third with a lead. For as bad as a team that Colorado has been this season, those were numbers that you wished that you could just ignore, and when Nick Schultz tied the game with just under two minutes to go in regulation, I was just glad that they got a point. The game eventually went into the shootout where Niklas Backstrom was able to stop Milan Hejduk and Marek Svatos (Wojtek Wolski scored...don't feel bad Backs, he's the NHL's best shootout scorer, going 10 for 11 this season) as Koivu and Marek Zidlicky (Pierre-Marc Bouchard was stopped)scored on Peter Budaj for the win, and the two points.

How good does a WIN make you feel?...at least for a couple of hours.

Notes:

• Happy birthday to Craig Weller yesterday! And his birthday present was being the healthy scratch for the Wild, along with John Scott and Colton Gillies. Brent Burns is still out and according to Russo, it'll be a while before Burns gets back.

• Kurtis Foster was back in the lineup for his second game of the season, his home debut, and his first game back at the X in a exactly a year, ironically it was against the Colorado Avalanche.

• Zidlicky is now 3 for 5 in shootouts as all 3 of his goals in the shootout have been the shootout deciding goal.

• Tom Reid, the Wild's color analyst on the radio, has shut it down to recuperate from knee surgery; Kevin Falness, the Wild's radio producer, will be filling in for Reid.

• 5 of the last 8 games for the Wild have needed extra sessions to decide the winner, in those five games the Wild have won 2 (one in OT, one in SO) and lost 3 (two in OT, one in SO).

• The Wild's April 5th game at Detroit has been picked up by NBC, so instead of a 4:00pm CT game start the game will start at 11:30am CT; it is only the 2nd time in franchise history that the Wild will be televised on NBC. NBC has also picked up a Detroit, Chicago game at the end of the season (and here I thought that NBC only thought that there were four teams in the NHL).

UP NEXT: Friday @ New Jersey Devils, 6:00pm CT (great...we get a well rested Martin Brodeur, because he won't be playing tonight against the Hurricanes, coming off of his 552nd NHL leading win...that's just wonderful!)

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Wild, 3 vs. Blues, 5

The worst thing that the Wild could've done last night was to score the 4th goal after the Blues scored the empty netter to saddle Josh Harding with the loss. On a road trip that will basically tell the team whether or not they can still make a run at the playoffs, they come out and lay an egg in all three cities. In a game where both team were supposed to come out desperate, St. Louis came out and dominated play, basically they just wanted the win and the two points more. Honestly, I turned the tv off after the THIRD powerplay goal was scored by the Blues (and I thought the Wild were supposed to be the #1 PK team) to make it 3-0 Blues and turned it back on with 5 minutes left in the game to check out the score. I knew that the Wild weren't going to come back from the 3-0 deficit (though hopefuls might point out the last couple of games where they've been down 2-0 and 3-0 to rally) with the way the that the Wild were playing. The 5-3 score makes the game seem closer than it really was, and like I said, the worst thing that the Wild could've done was to saddle Hards with the loss, like they've done so many times this season. Obviously a really disappointing loss for the team and the players as Russo said that the players looked "disappointed" and that JL looked "defeated", but they dug themselves this hole.

To the eternal optimist (aka the Kool-Aid drinking fans): Hey, the Wild are only a point of a playoff spot, if they string some wins together they're back in the thick of things.

To the realist and pessimist in all of us: When was the last time that the Wild had more than two wins in a row? Pack it in and hope that they make a big splash in the free agency market this summer. NO GABY, PLEASE!

I'm officially done with the hockey season and am resigned to know that this year, there will be no playoff run (at least they won't be one and out again, that's a consolation prize, right)...July 1st here we come...now, who do I root for in the playoffs?

There's no "Isn't it sad", it's just sad T_T.

Notes:

• So much for all those games in hand, huh?, as those have all but complete disappeared during the last two weeks.
• The Wild have lost nine of its last eleven (2-5-4), and I thought these must win games were supposed to make the team come out with desperation?
  
• Andrew Brunette playing on a torn ACL contemplating surgery during the offseason. My opinion: shut it down. I know he wants to help the team "succeed", but I don't think even AO could help this team...And like Riser says in that article, guys like Bruno and Nolan are a dying breed now in the NHL.
• I want to know what's going on with Brent Burns! The only news that has been heard is that he's suffering from concussion-like symptoms, but that was early on when he was out of the line up, is he planning on playing Tuesday?
• I wonder how the crowd will react to the team when they come back home for one game, or whether or not it will be a full house at the X?
  

UP NEXT: Tuesday vs. Colorado, 7:00pm CT

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