First of all, I want some props for this prognastication in my Jan. 21 entry:

Bouchard, one of these days, is going to fight Alexandre Burrows, I’m telling you. Every game those two quarrel, and if you read Bouchard’s quotes on Burrows in one of my stories back in November, you know he’s not a fan of Vancouver’s motormouth. 

Who called it? Too bad I didn’t put my money where my mouth, uh, fingertips, are.

Little Pierre-Marc Bouchard threw em down tonight with his old pal, Alex Burrows. The two skate together during the summer, yet Bouchard hates the dude with a passion. One day I’ll figure out the exact reason, but here’s a quote from one of my stories last November.

“He runs around, he tries to hurt you, he talks a lot on the ice - too much,” said Bouchard, who is not friendly with Burrows despite skating together during the summer. “Sometimes he just says some stupid stuff and I know a lot of guys ask him to [fight] and he doesn’t want to go.”

So tonight, Burrows crosses the blue line in the third period with his team down 4-zip and spears Bouchard in the gut. He goes down in a heap, gets up, Burrows tries to cross-check Bouchard in the head and Bouchard responds with a slash before dropping the gloves.

You’ll see all the quotes in my game story Saturday. But Burrows got a match for intent to injure, meaning he’ll probably be suspended. Bouchard got a slashing major, which means the league will review it. As you can see on the video on TSN, the cross check at the head was more apparent.

The Wild had a season-high 54 penalty minutes and the teams combined for 93. Brent Burns wiped the ice with Nathan McIver and he tried to get at Bouchard, while Derek Boogaard fought Jeff Cowan a few mins before.

Most importantly, the Wild got the W to pull within one point of making the playoffs.

It’ll take the most unlikely mathematical scenario to keep them out.

The only way the Wild would miss the playoffs is if it went 0-3 in its final three games AND both eighth-place Nashville AND ninth-place Vancouver go 4-0.

In other words, the magic number is one.

The Wild is three points ahead of Calgary and Colorado for its first division title, but the Flames have two games in hand.

– Bouchard scored the winner tonight, his first goal in 20 games (first since Feb. 17). Mikko Koivu snapped a 10-game goal drought with his first goal since March 6. He also had an assist and won 17 of 26 faceoffs. Brent Burns scored a power-play goal and Todd Fedoruk scored a pretty 2-on-1 off a Marian Gaborik feed.

“I was pretty gassed after that,” Fedoruk said. “My knee braces turned backwards.”

– Gaborik had two assists and now has 78 points, one short of Brian Rolston’s team record.

– Niklas Backstrom picked up his 31st win, a team record. He’s 5-0-4 in his last nine decisions with a 1.54 GAA and .943 SP. Backstrom is 16-2-6 with a 1.62 GAA with five of his nine shutouts in March and April this season and last.

– Burns has 15 goals and 42 points and eight power-play goals, all team record for defensemen. He tied Kurtis Foster’s D-man record with 18 power-play points.

– Sean Hill has five points in five games, and had two mammoth hits on Jeff Cowan by the Wild bench on one first-period shift.

– The Wild equalled its season-high with its fourth straight home win. It won four straight to open the season here.

– The Wild scored four goals in a home game for the first time in 10 games, dating to a 5-4 OT win over Nashville on Feb. 17.

– The Wild, which has the second-ranked PK in the NHL, is 19 for 19 in the last four games.

– Roberto Luongo was chased for the second game in a row. He gave up four goals on 21 shots, dropping to 6-11-4 all-time vs. the Wild with a 2.95 GAA and .892 SP. That’s his lowest SP vs. any NHL team.

Lemaire on why he didn’t skate Fedoruk, Simon and Boogaard on the same line: “Who’s going to play center? And how big is the puck?”

Funny end to the presser: Marilyn Risebrough, GM Doug Risebrough’s wife, asked the final question, saying, “It seemed like you had the guys playing well as a team?”

That’s it from here, except that Kurtis Foster is back in the Twin Cities at a local hospital. He flew up today via charter. 

Even though it’s unknown when or if he’ll be able to play next season, Risebrough told me he will re-sign Foster, a pretty classy move to take the stress off during his rehab.

I also discussed the Maple Leafs GM job with Risebrough today. I do think they’ll be calling the Wild this summer to ask for permission to speak to him. All this is in Saturday’s notebook. 

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 7:00 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.