Postgame stuff:

– Team-record 43rd win. Team record seventh straight. Wild is fifth in the West. If the season ended today, Detroit in the first round. Is it too late to take the buyout?

– With the Wild badly in need of a defenseman in the second, Kurtis Foster hopped off the sewing table to play part in the Wild’s last two goals. He then finished getting stitched up between periods.

– Jacques was rightfully perturbed with his team’s performance after.

– Gaborik’s got a six-game point streak (9 points). He scored his team-leading seventh winner. It was his 400th game. He now has 320 points.

– Demitra’s two points give him a team-leading 61. Five straight seasons of 60 for Pavol.

– Wild gave up two PPG, one more than it gave up in its last 13 games.

– Mark Parrish broke his pinky in the second period when hit by a Rolston slapper. Parrish doesn’t expect to miss any games thanks to “modern medicine.”

Same lineup as Calgary game tonight. Nummelin, Moore, Boogaard healthy.

– I forgot I was blogging. Sorry, 7:03 in, no score…Parrish just missed on a juicy Mikko Koivu rebound after he smoked Shane Doan in the neutral zone.

– No goal judges behind the net tonight. The NHL is experimenting moving the old guys you see behind the net with the red light switch. Tonight, they’re in the towers on each side of the press box.

– Another near scoring chance: Walz wins clean draw, then redirects Skoula’s shot. CuJo makes great save. He then stops Walz from point blank later in the shift.

– 1-0 after 1, Wild. Gaborik steals puck at Wild blue line, goes the length of the ice and Demitra scores on the rebound with 6.7 ticks left. The Wild got so used to saying, “We played a good road period,” the last month, it played a good road period in the first.
 

Period 2:

Bouchard just robbed twice on a Kurtis Foster rebound. Wes Walz just went limping down the tunnel with assistant medical trainer Mike Vogt.

– Great scene. Lemaire sends out Gaborik and Demitra. Linesman’s about to drop the puck. Then, everybody realizes there’s no center. Walz is in the dressing room. Lemaire frantically sends White onto the ice to take the draw.

– Walz is back. Missed two shifts. Foster’s in the dressing room after getting smoked by Nick Boynton. Foster’s back. Missed a shift.
– Parrish just left down the tunnel after taking a Rolston slap shot off the right hand or arm. Foster has left the bench again. Wild down two guys and Bouchard just went to the bench slowly after just missing a chance at the side of the net.

– Backstrom hasn’t allowed a goal against Phoenix in 152:27 this season so far.

– Foster’s back on bench again. Parrish is not.

– They say last minute goals are momentum killers. The Wild just scored its second and third goals in the last minute. Demitra in the first, Todd White and Marian Gaborik 20 seconds apart in the second. 3-0 Wild, although they’re looking at this one. They counted it.

– Parrish is not back, which is not a good sign for a player with the pain threshold of Parrish. Owen Nolan is out for the game with a leg injury.

– 160 minutes without allowing a goal so far to Phoenix for Backstrom. As I wrote when he shut out the Coyotes 1-0 in February, if the Wild doesn’t sign him this offseason, look for Phoenix to pursue him.

Period 3:

– Parrish still not back. They’re saying upper body, possible he can return. If he could, why’s he not back after an entire intermission?

– Shutout string for Backstrom against Phoenix ended at 167:43 on an beauty of a redirection by Niko Kapanen on a PP.

– Wild is doing everything to mess this up. Johnsson in the box. And quite frankly, the Wild has been less than impressive. It can hardly make a pass from A to B, and when it does, it can’t execute. How bout that for a bunch of it’s? 

– And it’s 3-2…9:26 left. Bill Thomas on a big rebound. Who’s Bill Thomas?

– Last seven minutes, it’s been chip it out, change, dump the puck, change. This is the definition of hanging on.

– Yet it wins 3-2…Not good though. This team better gets its home game in order. Good night.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 12:33 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.