Minnesota Wild (4-3-0 ) 8pts 4th in Central
3.29 Goals For (4th)
1.57 Goals Against (2nd)
0.0% Power Play (29th)
95.0% Penalty Kill (2nd)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #11 Zach Parise ~ 3G 4A = 7pts
2. #29 Jason Pominville ~ 3G 3A = 6pts
3. #16 Jason Zucker ~ 5G 0A = 5pts
4. #48 Jared Spurgeon ~ 2G 3A = 5pts
5. #24 Matt Cooke ~ 2G 3A = 5pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #11 Zach Parise ~ 11PIM’s
2. #3 Charlie Coyle ~ 10PIM’s
3. #18 Ryan Carter ~ 10PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #35 Darcy Kuemper (4-2-0) 1.51GAA .934SV% 3SO
2. #32 Niklas Backstrom (0-1-0) 2.03GAA .875SV%
Vs.
Boston Bruins (5-5-0) 10pts 4th in the Atlantic
2.50 Goals For (21st)
2.40 Goals Against (12th)
20% Power Play (16th)
80.6% Penalty Kill (16th)
Top 5 Scorers:
1. #46 David Krecji ~ 3G 5A = 8pts
2. #34 Carl Soderberg ~ 3G 4A = 7pts
3. #23 Chris Kelly ~ 2G 5A = 7pts
4. #37 Patrice Bergeron ~ 1G 5A = 6pts
5. #17 Milan Lucic ~ 1G 5A = 6pts
Top 3 PIM’s:
1. #17 Milan Lucic ~ 26 PIM’s
2. #63 Brad Marchand ~ 16 PIM’s
3. #64 Bobby Robins ~ 14 PIM’s
Top Goaltenders:
1. #40 Tuukka Rask (4-3-0) 2.63GAA .897%SP
2. #72 Niklas Svedberg (1-2-0) 1.57GAA .951%SP 1SO
Just when you think everything in real like and in the Wild’s life is going in the right direction, life tends to take a turn. Those kinds of turns are rarely of the good kind. In my every day life, the bad turn came when our Basset hound Fergus wasn’t feeling good yesterday afternoon. I noticed his stomach seemed a little bloated, so off to the vet we went. Sadly, we had to put him down due to a nasty case of bloat. If you have a large, deep chested breed of dog, this is a serious condition, and one that we all need to keep more of an eye out for. I hope you can learn from our loss. He was a devoted canine companion, and needless to say our hearts are broken. Our loss of our friend, definitely made last night’s game just that more frustrating.
In the Wild’s life, they managed to blow a 3-0 lead at the 2nd intermission to lose 5-4 to the New York Rangers. To give up five goals in 20 minutes, is not anyone’s idea of a recipe for success. The crazy part of the loss, is that once again, all four Wild goals were scored even strength. And yes, the opportunities to score on the man-advantage were there. As Justin Fontaine said, they just sat back during the third period. Sure, they’re scoring now, but they need to remember that the Minnesota Wild haven’t always been known as a high scoring team. Heck, even at this point, I wouldn’t classify the Wild as a high scoring team. It’s going to take a lot of games, with at least 3-4 goals on a consistent basis in order for this team to be known as an offensively minded team.
The other thing that was once again thrown at the Minnesota Wild was physical play. The New York Rangers were assessed 2 five-minute majors, and one of them was assessed a match penalty. First to go down was Jonas Brodin, but thankfully we saw him play again. Zach Parise was cut by a stick and had to get some quick stitches, but he too came back. The match penalty came about an elbow to Erik Haula’s head. We never saw him the rest of the night. I’m not holding much hope of Chris Pronger delivering much when it comes to additional disciple for John Moore. Teams around the league are going to be able to look at this game and say “just hit them” and we can take them out of the game. Sad, but true. And I think that just might be the most heartbreaking lesson of the entire game.
Looking at the Bruins, they have the firepower to score. They also have the ability to put the hurt on a team. I don’t know if I can take two games in a row if the Wild play like they did against the Rangers. Minnesota will need to push the Rangers game out of their minds, and dig deep and rally in Boston. Think about the good times and wins, learn from the losses, and move on. That should be the Wild’s mantra tonight. In fact, it’s a pretty good mantra for life in general.
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