OK, the rematch is finally upon us. I was communicating with Hall of Famer Denis Potvin today about a bunch of stuff, and his prediction: “An early battle — Boogaard and Brown — then the game will go on.”

We’ll see. It will completely have to do with the score. If it’s tight, things should remain civil. If one team grabs an early big lead like Vancouver did against the Wild Friday, the chippiness should begin.

Both referees and linesmen were on the bench to ensure order during warmups.

Postgame comments: Next time, Derek Boogaard should probably leave Markus Naslund and the Sedin Twins alone. Naslund had a hat trick tonight, the Sedins two assists apiece as the Canucks, despite arriving in St. Paul at 4 a.m., outskated and outhustled the Wild en route to a 4-2 win.

Pretty embarrassing really that the Wild couldn’t muster up a little energy. They looked like the tired team, not the Canucks.

Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault swiped back at Boogaard, who said maybe he’d “go after or check” Naslund and the Sedins after Mattias Ohlund broke Mikko Koivu’s leg.

“You can’t intimidate the Twins and Markus Naslund,” smirking coach Alain Vigneault said. “Obviously they proved it tonight.”

“Our guys were focused,” Vignault continued. “They were ready, and they’re intellectually pretty smart. They don’t watch … what’s that? Pinky and the Star? The Brain? None of them really watch that. They’re focused on hockey.”

Wild has now dropped nine of its past 13. It’s tied with Vancouver at the top of the Northwest with 24 points and is close to falling right out of the top eight.

Marian Gaborik was the only reason why this one wasn’t another one-sided loss. He scored twice in the first to rally the Wild from an early 2-0 deficit.

Brian Rolston, looking lethargic, hasn’t scored in seven games, his longest stretch since January 2006. Rolston hasn’t gone eight or more since 2004.

Martin Skoula again was terrible and cost the Wild on the winner, although Dominic Moore didn’t exactly cover up for his offensive-zone turnover. Kim Johnsson was responsible for the last Naslund goal. Both defense partners were a minus-2.

I’m sure one of them will be scratched Friday against Columbus. I’ll pause for laughter.

Sean Hill, in his Wild debut, had five hits and didn’t see much ice in the third. He said it was as he expected — timing was off.

Petteri Nummelin looked like he hurt his right leg in the third after he amazingly decided to skate backwards into his zone despite a whole lot of open ice. Sure, the Wild was a line change, but he could have dumped the puck at the red line.

Instead he put himself in a scrambling position and got hurt.

The Wild is now 0-8-2 when allowing a goal in the third, which is a terrifying thing if you think about it. The Wild is 11-0 when it doesn’t.

The Wild is 0-8-2 when allowing three goals or more.

When you can’t win a game like this, when your opponent got in at 4 a.m., playing the third game in four nights, and you’re not even playing Roberto Luongo, the alarm bells should be going off.

Lemaire, after several games lately, has complained that the Wild lacks legs, lacks a spark. The question is who’s screaming in the locker room to get this team inspired.

I’ll tell you one person I know it’s not — Wes Walz.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 6:12 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.