Wild had an upbeat, uptempo practice this afternoon down at Parade Ice Garden.

Every player was on the ice, except Stephane Veilleux, whose flu bug must be treating him like a fire fighter’s work week – 24 hours on, 24 hours off, 24 hours on.

Remember, Veilleux missed Thursday’s practice with the flu. He recovered enough Friday to go on the ice during the morning skate and participate in warmups Friday night, but he didn’t play against Vancouver.

He’s been slammed again today by this debilitating bug — trust me, it’s been filtering through the team — and will miss tomorrow’s 5 p.m. game against Colorado, according to coach Jacques Lemaire.

The Wild won’t have a morning skate tomorrow, so the lineup won’t be on here until prior to the game.

I’m going to do a follow story on the team toughness angle of the Wild for tomorrow’s paper, specifically looking at the Bouchard fight again. There were some funny little quips after practice.

Regardless, just because having the three GOONies (somebody emailed me that nickname — I think Dan, and I like it) seems to work against Vancouver doesn’t necessarily mean Chris Simon will be in the lineup tomorrow.

Lemaire said there are certain teams he’ll use the three bruisers (Simon, Derek Boogaard and Todd Fedoruk) against and certain teams he won’t. Lemaire obviously won’t identify those teams (Calgary and Vancouver definitely and I’d guess Anaheim), but remember, Simon was scratched during the Wild’s most recent game against Colorado, a 2-0 shutout March 17. And Scott Parker’s hurt.

Some funny stuff from practice:

– First of all, Brian Rolston and Pierre-Marc Bouchard both thought the Wild was playing Calgary tomorrow, and Marian Gaborik had to correct them.

– Today must have been bring-your-kids-to-work day because many players had their children roaming around.

Soon-to-be-4-year-old Luke Fedoruk’s become a hit. Like father, like son. He tapes his wrists like pops, he spits in the garbage can like pops, he punches like pops.

I always find it humorous watching the players parent while in the locker room. As Todd was doing an interview, Luke kept saying, “Daddy, daddy, daddy,” and Todd had to stop and say, “Daddy’s having a conversation right now. Don’t interrupt when daddy’s having a conversation.”

The funniest sight was watching Luke untape and untie Mikko Koivu’s skates for five minutes as Koivu instructed him. He then put all of Koivu’s equipment in the locker.

At one point Koivu goes, “Make sure you turn the shin pads around. You don’t want to anger the trainers.”

Apparently Luke Fedoruk is dating Eric Belanger’s daughter, but that’s for another day’s blog.

Speaking of Fedoruk, the elder one, this guy’s a treat to deal with. For years, beat writers around the league have raved to me about how good a guy he is to deal with, and there’s certainly truth in advertising. Funny guy, and a go-to-quote. 

– Koivu. Man, Rolston was good talking about how Koivu’s become the team’s MVP. I’ll be writing something on that in the coming days. I also talked to Koivu about the topic you all have been having lately — the amount of times he’s kicked out of the faceoff circle. The guy’s been a faceoff stud lately though. He was real interesting on the topic, and that too will be in the paper in the coming days (not tomorrow, but maybe Monday’s paper).

– Brent Burns had a bunch of gashes on his right hand courtesy of Nathan McIver’s face. After McIver went after Bouchard, Burns grabbed McIver and looked like he was starting a lawn mower.

– The re-signing Kurtis Foster story today. I was reading the comments on the bottom of the story, and I did want to correct one misconception.

While it’s true Foster will likely start next season on injured reserve, Foster’s $1.025 million salary will count against the salary cap next season. The only time that long-term injury exception formula hits is when a team exceeds the upper limit of the cap.

OK, that’s it for now. I better write for the actual paper.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Practice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.