So check this out, right above us lowly Wild beat writers here in the Canucks press box is a curtained off area with catering and security and flowers and … and …

Clearly not for working media. So I go up to take a gander and it’s Christina Aguilera. She played GM Place last night. Apparently, her sound and light guy is a “huge Wild fan.” I’m getting a sore neck.

This must be the Christina/Wild tour. She goes to Edmonton and Calgary next, as do the Wild, then comes to St. Paul next week.

Boogaard just spent a portion of warmup chirping at Jeff Cowan. Boogaard told me this morning he wants a “retraction” from Cowan because it was published last time we were in town that Boogaard “declined an invitation” to fight him.

Incidentally, my first-period intermission segment was TAPED pregame. Now I wish it was live.

Wild being outshot 6-0 7:04 in.

Amazing period. One Vancouver goal goes off post, then Backstrom’s butt, the other off Burns’ skate. Minnesota’s hit two posts and had about four pucks go just wide.

Jacques has scrambled his top two lines, now Koivu-Demitra-Bouchard, and Gaborik-White-Rolston.

Hits somehow are 6-6 after 1.

Wild has flirted all period and finally made it 2-1. Keith Carney stole the puck from Matt Cooke and fed Mikko Koivu with a beauty. A 2-on-0 with Gaborik down low, Koivu scored.

Luongo just robbed Gaborik. Todd White’s been a human neutral zone trap tonight. He’s got to have like five takeaways at center. Wild outshooting Vancouver 9-3 this period with 5:52 left.

Kim Johnsson just got used by countryman Henrik Sedin the way Brunette used Walz earlier this season. Johnsson just reversed the puck right to Sedin after he yelled — definitely something in Swedish — to coax the pass. Led to Schultz penalty.

Christina just left with 5:47 left in a 2-1 game. Some fan!

– Well, that was insane. I feel like I just went 12 rounds with Boogaard. Talk about rewriting in a flash with zero time to waste. I don’t know what I wrote or if it made sense. Deadline’s an exhilarating thing for a sportswriter, but, this was a little ridiculous tonight. Now, I’m wired.

Amazingly, Brent Burns scored his second consecutive winning goal. I’ll have to call Elias tomorrow, but I’m wondering when was the last NHLer to score overtime winners in consecutive games. There can’t be many, can there?

Just like the other night vs. Colorado, it came off a Marian Gaborik rebound. After the goal, Burns got hog-tied to the ice by hard-nosed defenseman Kevin Bieksa. Burns joked it was the most painful “cellie” (as in celebration) of his career.

Burns recovered from two early bad bounces that resulted in goals. The first, he made a great play by poke-checking the puck out of the zone. But it deflected back in off Dominic Moore’s leg and, look out. The second deflected off Burns’ skate.

But he recovered bigtime. Big win, although it’s still a point behind Vancouver. If these two teams meet in the first round — and there’s a chance — it could be epic. Especially with the rivalry Bieksa’s developing with a number of Wild players. That kid is a great defenseman, although I’m sure Wild fans are starting to think of him the way they think of Jarko Ruutu and Matt Cooke.

Off-ice officials here must hate Todd White. Last game, they didn’t give him an obvious assist until way late. Tonight, he sent the puck ahead to Gaborik before the winner, yet no assist. He also had like 10 takeaways. On the stat sheet, he had none and the Wild had TWO!

Good road win after an awful start. But it recovered, a sign of a good team. Nighty night….6:45 flight to EDM.

By the way, as I sit on the nicest plane I have ever been on - it has a new car smell - I was just thinking, this Dallas, san Jose, wild race is almost as intriguing as the division race. All three teams won Sunday, all three teams won last night. They just can’t break this three team tie. If I were the wild, I would want to avoid eighth or fifth at the end because Detroit will finish first or fourth likely. And the wild doesn’t even compete vs. Detroit for some reason.

Don’t know why I felt compelled to share that random thought. Probably because I didn’t get a wink of sleep after awaking in a panic that I got Brent burns’ age wrong in todays gamer. I got it right, but couldn’t fall back to sleep. I also woke up thinking I was in buffalo. Every hotel room is starting to look the same.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Game coverage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.