This morning, Jacques Lemaire put together the longest practice since I’ve covered the team — upwards of two hours.

“They’ll sleep well tonight,” Lemaire joked.

Group 1, which included more than 30 guys (all the Wild players and a number of players who have caught the team’s collective eyes), practiced for an hour, then scrimmaged for 30 minutes (gameclock 30 minutes, so longer), then practiced a little more. (Group 2, which had a 12:30 scheduled start, is still on the ice, I think.)

Good pace to the first group.

Branko Radivojevic, Petr Kalus (who looked very good) and Nick Schultz scored for the green team. Brent Burns scored a power-play goal for the white team as green beat white, 3-1.

Woah, speaking of white (this is how my mind works), I was in touch with Todd White, now with the Atlanta Thrashers, a lot yesterday. He’s playing on a line with Ilya Kovalchuk against the Islanders tonight and looks like he’ll be Kovie’s center this year.

As I told him, I could probably score 60 points playing with Kovalchuk (not really), so he should score 90. White will definitely be the accountable one of the two.

Back to the Wild for now (I’ll make my daily Panthers reference in a moment), the team plays its first exhibition game tomorrow evening (7 o’clock) against the Mighty or undoubtedly UnMighty Detroit Red Wings.

Remember last year, the Red Wings brought a bunch of scrubs to the X for the preseason game, or as radio play by play man Bob Kurtz mused this morning, a bunch of guys who at one point in their lives walked through the Detroit airport.

No word on whom the Red Wings found on the street to bring tomorrow, but the Wild is playing a very legit lineup.

The All-Slovak line of Radivojevic, Pavol Demitra and Marian Gaborik will be dusted off probably because Radivojevic won’t stop scoring in these scrimmages. Other regulars scheduled to play include Eric Belanger (Wild unofficial debut), P-M Bouchard, Dominic Moore, Derek Boogaard, Wes Walz, Kurtis Foster, Kim Johnsson, Petteri Nummelin, Brent Burns and Martin Skoula.

Nik Backstrom and Josh Harding will split time in the ice. Of the contending roster players, Benoit Pouliot, Petr Kalus, Danny Irmen, Matt Foy and Erik Reitz will play.

There, I gave you the entire lineup (unless Jacques calls an audible tomorrow as he’s been known to do), found only inside Russoville.

James Sheppard, 19, is not playing tomorrow. Purely speculation, but I think the team probably wants to play him on the road this week. Unlike most cities in the preseason, you devoted fans actually sell an exhibition game out, so I think they just want to ease his nerves. Remember, the kid was essentially shut down last preseason because of a back injury, so he hasn’t slipped on an NHL sweater for real yet.

And without further ado, here’s my daily Panthers mention just to tick off Wild radio personality Kevin Falness.

Remember yesterday when I mentioned that Aaron Voros’ physical act in camp was not the worst I’ve seen? I was trying to think today of the most egregious training camp brouhaha I’ve witnessed.

Well, one popped in my head and I found my article on it. It ran Sept. 19, 2003. Here’s a snippet on Todd Gill, a veteran who was essentially in Panthers camp on a tryout. He was soon dismissed after this incident.

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

September 19, 2003 Friday Broward Metro Edition

ANGRY GILL GOES AFTER TEAMMATE

BYLINE: MICHAEL RUSSO STAFF WRITER

SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 12C

LENGTH: 547 words

DATELINE: SUNRISE

Todd Gill, signed last month by the Panthers to provide experience, leadership and toughness on defense, attacked teammate Max Birbraer while Birbraer was stretching at practice Thursday.

Gill, upset at what he felt was a cheap shot from Birbraer during the first period of a scrimmage, appeared to kick and knee Birbraer in the face before jumping on him as the Panthers’ prospect stretched on the ice to prepare for the second period.

As teammates pulled Gill off, Birbraer briefly stayed on the ice crumpled over. While initially “dazed,” he soon stood up uninjured and the period began.

Trying to downplay the incident, Birbraer, 22, said, “Todd Gill’s an old player, a very respectable person. I guess, the way it looked, I deserved it.”

The incident began when Gill, 37, was skating to touch up an icing. Birbraer tried to beat Gill to the puck and crashed into the 19-year veteran of more than 1,000 games.

Few things anger players more than being hit after an icing whistle. Gill was irate and a linesman had to pull him away.

“I kind of went to the boards awkwardly,” Birbraer said. “Nobody means to try to hurt anybody, obviously, but we just had a misunderstanding.”

Later in the period, Gill came off the bench, sprinted toward Birbraer and pushed him from behind, but Birbraer turned and went to the bench.

The period ended, but Gill was unable to cool down during the break. When the teams returned to the ice, Gill sought out Birbraer, saw him stretching, skated over and kicked him.

“All I saw was somebody’s feet, but that’s it,” Birbraer said. “Originally, I was kind of dazed. Then I got up. I was fine. He went into the boards pretty hard, too. I didn’t mean to do it, especially in training camp. It’s your own player. I wasn’t trying to hurt him.”

Gill tersely said, “He did what he thought he had to do. I did what I thought I had to do. It’s over with. We go on.”

The story continued, but Falness is bored. Talk to you after tomorrow’s morning skate and throughout the preseason game.

Early evening update: Just got a voicemail from the Detroit Free Press Red Wings writer. Detroit is bringing Pavel Datsyuk, Chris Chelios, Tomas Holmstrom and Kirk Maltby.

�

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.