Wild, 1 vs. Rangers, 2

With the way that this team has been playing, the Wild has as much of a chance to get into the playoffs as the Ottawa Senators. It was a night of what-ifs, and with the stretch the Wild have been on and with the position that they've put themselves in, they can no longer dwell on the what-ifs, and the what-ifs are no longer a comfort to fans. The Wild were outplayed by the Rangers, and basically had no puck possession, no sustained pressure in the offensive zone, so basically no offense at all. After Colton Orr took an additional roughing minor in his fight with Owen Nolan, Antti Miettinen took and ill-advised interference call in the the offensive zone, and negated the powerplay opportunity for the Wild. During the 4-on-4 play, with 4.4 seconds left in the first period, Nikolai Zherdev scored to give the Rangers the 1-0 lead going into the second period. The Wild weren't playing all that well in the first and going into the second, you thought that they would've gained momentum when Marian Gaborik scored his first goal since December 23 more than a minute and a half into the second period to tie up the game, but in less time than it took for the Wild to tie the game up, they were again trailing the Rangers when Scott Gomez scored 43 seconds after Gaborik tied the game (now you know you didn't have the game tied long when the opposition scored before you're goal was even announced on the PA). I don't know how the Wild expected to tie the game when with 6 minutes left in regulation the team takes a too many men on the ice penalty, and just when the penalty is about to expire, Nick Schultz does a bone head move and shoots the puck over the glass. That's four minutes of wasted time, and with two minutes left to try and generate offense the Wild did nothing. With Niklas Backstrom on the bench for the extra attacker, the Wild did nothing...well, not nothing, Kim Johnsson took as slashing call with 33 seconds left in regulation to put the Wild out of its misery.

Just the Wild's luck that the Anaheim-Nashville game goes into extra sessions (and the only thing I was rooting for in that game was that it would end in regulation) and each teach has at least a point. Edmonton lost to Detroit, but St. Louis shutout the Kings, so the Wild are now 11th in the Western Conference...and quickly sinking...

Notes:

• Craig Weller and John Scott were the healthy scratches.
• Colton Gillies had a TOI of 3:02; he was on the ice for Gomez's game winning goal, took one shift after (10 minutes between the shifts) and was benched in the third.
• Scary incident in the first when Kurtis Foster lost an edge going into the boards and one of the refs fell on top of him, his skate hitting Foster's head; Foster was OK and played the rest of the game.
  
• Stats: NYR won 65% of the faceoffs (which is closer than what it really was), 70% at even strength; Johnsson was -2 last night
  
• It was a pretty physical game with 60 total hits in the game and "gatherings" after whistles; even Gaborik was physical, credited with 4 hits and pretty good one on Markus Naslund.
• Clutterbuck vs. Avery, Nolan vs. Orr

UP NEXT: Today @ New York Islanders, 6:00pm CT

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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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