How tight is the West? If it was Game 82, the Wild went from missing the playoffs to having home-ice advantage with one win. Yes, the Wild skyrocketed from ninth to third. It’s absurd.

The tightness is created because so many teams get free points every night for losing.

I didn’t cover last night, but Nik Backstrom looked like the Backstrom of old in the final two periods. He kept the Wild in it. In the second period, the Wild did not generate one single prolonged possession in Nashville’s end. The entire period was played in the Wild end, and Backstrom stood tall and blanked the Predators.

The game was won right there. By the way, the Wild has won the last two I haven’t covered. Bad news, I think I’m on for the entire homestand.

Branko Radivojevic’s goal was a cool sight. He’s been under a lot of heat the last three or four days when it became apparent that one reason Todd Fedoruk was acquired was the team’s displeasure with him.

After being scratched for the first time as a Wild, Radivojevic returned to score the winner. Now he’s got to build off of this or he indeed will wind up in another uniform at some point.

The Aaron-Voros-James Sheppard-Matt Foy line scored the game’s first two goals last night. Inexplicably, against Vancouver and Columbus, Lemaire broke the threesome up after they won the Colorado game for the Wild last Sunday. I’d say Jacques should probably give this line a second straight game together Wednesday vs. red-hot Phoenix, 4-0 since Ilya Bryzgalov came there.

Let me know your thoughts on my Sunday column and Russo’s Rant, a rant directed at the always-dirty Matt Cooke.

Pavol Demitra should be back Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am 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.