Good day from Edmonton, where the sun is shining and the city is a little livelier than it was on Easter Sunday.

There was one restaurant near the hotel open last night. I wound up in there with every coach and every player on the team. Like they don’t see me enough. And vice versa.

I’ll be on KSTP with Jim Souhan around 5:35 tonight. 

Quick interjection: I just saw a “Visit Cuba” tourism commercial on CBC, and I realized that’s the first time I’ve seen one in my life. Guess they can’t show those in the U.S., eh?

Lots and lots of stuff down at the Rex today.

– I don’t know the lineup. Jacques had all the players get off at the same time, and Eric Belanger didn’t even know if he was playing. If Belanger (broken toe) doesn’t play, the Wild will either play all three enforcers or put Mark Parrish in, I assume, for Chris Simon. If Belanger returns, I assume Pavol Demitra moves to wing and Simon comes out.

One thing’s for sure, contrary to an email I received from a reader: Once Belanger comes back, as long as Benoit Pouliot continues to make an impact, the Wild can’t go with all three of Derek Boogaard, Todd Fedoruk and Simon every night. The reader said the Wild will go with all three bruisers for the rest of the year — guaranteed.

Well, just do the math. If Pouliot stays in and all three of the bruisers play, another winger has to come out? And who would that be? Gaborik? Demitra? Rolston? Bouchard? Veilleux? Radivojevic?

Just doesn’t work unless it’s Boogaard or Simon (Fedoruk’s in every night). And again, where does this leave Mark Parrish?

On Pouliot, Jacques Lemaire said, “If Ben is part of these guys (good-playing players), he’s going to play. If he’s not, he’s not going to play. And that goes for all the guys — except for Gabby, because he’s going to play [no matter what]. And Burns, he’s going to play.”

– I was shooting the breeze with Fedoruk as we tried to brainstorm a nickname for the three bruisers. Fedoruk: “It’s got to be a good one. It can’t just be anything, like ‘Three Amigos,” or “the Bad Boys.” And something has to happen. There’s got to be an incident.”

My response: “Don’t say that. I don’t want to deal with the Supplemental Discipline Line.” What do you think they should be called?

Boogaard also laughed his you know what off when I told him Oilers coach Craig MacTavish’s best line of his presser: “It’s definitely a collective organization strategy that they wanted to get tougher. They’ve got Boogaard, who’s always played well against us … uh, seemingly. …”

MacT called last game’s combination of Boogaard, Sheppard and Simon the “Two big wingers and a guy with big feet” line because of Sheppard’s Size 15’s.

That line’s nickname doesn’t really roll off the tongue easy, though.

– MacTavish said it should be easier to play the Wild tonight than most nights because the Oilers are coming off a game with Colorado, whom MacTavish said is very similar system-wise to the Wild. Wild have to be wary tonight. The Oilers are young and fast and have been successful recently by sucking opponents into getting into a race with them. Run and gun don’t work for el Wild. Worked the Oilers’ room this morning for a likely feature for Wednesday’s paper on Edmonton, since the two squads rematch at the X and the Oilers have flown up from 14th in the West since the last time the Wild was in town.

Talked with guys like Sam Gagner — I saw him play at age 10 in Florida when I covered his dad, Dave, and he was heads above then — Tom Gilbert, Marty Reasoner, Jarret Stoll, Dwayne Roloson, etc. 

Tonight’s a huge game for Edmonton. It’s three points behind Colorado, which plays Calgary. Lots of guys, like Steve Staios, said it will be imperative for players to keep the blinkers on and try not to pay attention to what’s going on in the Colorado-Calgary game.

“Not everybody’s going to not know what happened in that game, but it’s not going to be any help to us if we concentrate on and hope for the help,” Staios said. “We have to take care of our own business.”

– Assistant coach Mario Tremblay smiled and jokingly said, “I haven’t seen it,” (his version of no comment) when I asked him if he saw Patrick Roy’s son, Jonathan Roy’s, ugly display over the weekend. I’ve always gotten a kick out of Tremblay’s reaction to Patrick Roy when he walked past him and told ownership that he had played his final game for the Canadiens in 2005. Remember, Tremblay finally pulled Roy after giving up nine goals against the Red Wings. If you ever see the video — I couldn’t find it on YouTube — just look at Tremblay’s face.

– Had a funny talk with Nick Schultz about his big hit on his brother-in-law, Calgary’s Cory Sarich, the other night. That’ll be in tomorrow’s notebook. Remember, Sarich also drove Simon illegally into the wall and fought Fedoruk in a long, long tilt. Tonight, Schultz goes against his buddy, Jarret Stoll, whose girlfriend is the beautiful Rachel Hunter.

I don’t care what Schultz accomplishes in this league, his claim to fame to me will always be that Rachel Hunter was at his wedding.  

– I think Counting Crows is on Letterman tonight. Somebody TiVo it for me please.

I’ll probably add more stuff as I transcribe because there’s no possible way all I got this morning can fit into the newspaper. I love the blog.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Pregame skate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.