Wild 3, Avalanche 2 (OT); Wild evens series
Posted on April 12th, 2008 – 12:16 AMBy Michael Russo
First, I know you don’t care, but one reason you’ll see a game story in the final editions and on the web site, is because of Frank Brown, the NHL’s vice president of communications, who was in town accompanying Gary Bettman tonight.
After I scrambled to re-write my gamer in the last second and file two minutes after Keith Carney’s overtime winner, I run to the elevator and it’s completely full.
Brown, being the veteran he is — he’s the former hockey writer at the NY Daily News — got out to let me squeeze in. Many, many thanks.
What a euphoric locker room, but still, what impressed me was the level-headedness. Just like Wednesday’s atmosphere was not-too low, tonight was not-too high, which is a good sign if you’re a Wild supporter.
This was an unbelievable finish. I hope to someday actually get to watch it.
If you think about, there were three goals in a 3:05 span, concluding with Carney’s OT winner — his third playoff goal in 87 career games and first since April 24, 1999.
I’ll let you read the gamer, but Brent Burns gave me a couple great anecdotes.
The goal was unassisted, but Mikko Koivu and Pierre-Marc Bouchard, who teamed on the late regulation goal, set it up in reality. And maybe Avs defenseman Ruslan Salei also could have gotten both assists.
Thanks to the off-ice officials above me who loaded up the TiVo well after the game, I got to see the goal from its inception. Koivu was skating in the corner with Joe Sakic all over him. He backhanded the puck to Bouchard off the cycle, and Bouchard tried to throw it into the crease for Brian Rolston.
Salei quickly tried to clear, but he banged it off the half wall and Carney one-timed it off Salei’s skate.
As Rolston joked, “It went through my aura.”
Talk about a rollercoaster of emotions, but the Wild, which had 23 shots blocked, think its scores the winner with 1:51 left in the third on Koivu’s shot from just inside the blue line.
Then Kim Johnsson’s called for a questionable hooking penalty and Milan Hejduk scores on the redirection with 43.8 ticks left to tie it.
But the Wild’s veterans said some bigtime words of composure during the intermission, and the Wild gets a lucky winner — fittingly off of one final blocked shot.
Other notes:
– Branko Radivojevic, who gutted out the entire game on a painful right leg, declined to talk after. But man, pretty impressive performance for a guy that looks to be bigtime injured.
– Wild outhit Colorado 24-12, with the biggest crowd-pleaser being Pavol Demitra, who scored a power-play goal for his 20th career playoff goal, pounding Peter Forsberg.
– And how great was Martin Skoula???
– The Wild improved to 2-9 in its last 11 playoff games dating to 2003 and is now 4-8 at home in the playoffs, and 3-4 in playoff overtimes.
– Forsberg scored his 64th career playoff goal in 146 games.
– The Wild has allowed the first goal in six straight playoff games.
– Very, very few Wild players will be practicing Saturday with two days off between games, but I’ll hop on the blog at some point prior to my flight to Denver to say hi between preparing hopefully quality stuff for your Sunday paper.
The Wild will fly to Denver Saturday afternoon and practice there Sunday at noon MT.
53 Responses to "Wild 3, Avalanche 2 (OT); Wild evens series"
Good tease Don. I can’t wait to hear Burnsie’s anecdotes.
Can the Wild get Koivu a 12 year deal sometime tomorrow?
Kudos to Radivojevic and Skoula for gutty performances.
Keep playing the body and putting the puck on net.
Radio’s got a brass set boy. he looked completely done when he was helped off.
AiH - Yeap I say lifetime deal right now. Can they not find a way to get his brother over here too. The absolutley love Saku in Montreal and we will feel the same for his younger brother.
i’m surprised by the hit number. there was as stretch that the aves hit anything in iron range red. and hit hard. i’m not surprised by the blocked shots. seemed like every shot was blocked by an lanche.
seemed like the ice was chippy. could keep the puck from hopping.
G* - they had a freeze frame of the play that hurt him in the first period in the Iron Range Bar and I think it was either lanche #26 or 28 that just stomped on his ankle after they gave him the elbow. I have a new found respect for Radio.
G* - leaving the Foppa sandals home for game 5?
I would will be the first to say that I would have been just fine with giving Radio away for a used puck bag earlier in the year. But I have come to respect his game over the past month or so. I’ve always felt he was gritty, especially for a Euro, but his D has been fantastic as of late.
I’m glad I was watching the same game as most sane viewers when it came to Skouba tonight. For some people old habits die hard. They would rather hang on than give an inch in their dispositions.
I love our tude right now. This is going to be a hell of a series no matter how it turns out.
leaving the Foppa sandals home for game 5
i think so
Echoing what has already been said, but props to Radio and Skouba for “nutting it up”. Huge games by both of them especially considering they were dinged.
G*, I don’t think you have a choice but to leave the foppas in the closet until the end of the series.
they had a freeze frame of the play that hurt him in the first period in the Iron Range Bar and I think it was either lanche #26 or 28 that just stomped on his ankle after they gave him the elbow.
i remember it beign salei that dumped him. didn’t see a stomp though. may have to watch the tape or fire up the DVR
I have not read it all yet, but just maybe Ruesse did a decent hockey story.
Grreenstar, did you make McGoverns? If you did where were you seated?
I don’t think you have a choice but to leave the foppas in the closet until the end of the series
yeah. would that mean i could go to mcgovern’s before game 5?
crash davis: never f*ck with a winning streak. If you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid, or because you’re not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear, then you ARE! And you should know that!
Ice, I glanced at it and got sucked in. It wasn’t too bad which means it was outstanding by Fatrick’s standards.
i didn’t go to mcgovern’s tonight, we lost wednesday when i did. bad vibe. that and NiNY wasn’t buying 
Rose goes in the front big guy!
G*, wear the women’s underwear to game 5 and leave the Foppas at home. Crash is right. Never f with a winning streak. I’ll be sporting the “throwback” green jersey again on Monday. If this thing goes 7, the jersey is gonna start stinkin.
Go to Reid’s for game 5. It sounded like people actually found one another on Wednesday and it didn’t work. Tonight there were Russotans there and they couldn’t connect. Obviously the key to victory. A get together at McGoverns doesn’t work. Hang out at Reids to lock it up in game 5.
i switched to the old home white for tonight. i’m hoping i don’t need to switch back to the iron range red for a long time.
haven’t been to reids since before the lockout so that just might work.
pretty relieved skoula played tonight. without him who knows what would have happened.
koivu was huge tonight. it seemed like the avs couldn’t find anybody to handle him.
lifetime deals are foolish, but koivu definitely needs at least a 5-year deal.
Well, I didn’t call the score correctly, or the goal-scorers, but I got the winning team right, which counts for something, eh?
Great fans tonight, great atmosphere and enough tension to help me grow an ulcer. On to Denver, and let’s put these old men to rest.
Reason the Wild will win this series is team grit.
We have a team of guys we can like and appreciate. Koivu is the type of player who actually can strap the team on his back when they need it. I think Gabby will start to score.
Quinville is not a coach to hate.
I do not care how a ref calls a game if it is even each way.
But, if they choose to let Forsberg go without a penalty for contact on Backstrom then how can they call the Yohnsson penalty in the last minute of the game?
That is a lot of bull.
I think the Wild really need to sign Koivu to a long contract. I don’t want to lose him to someone else. The longer they wait, the more valuable he becomes.
He is a great two-way player. He is as complete a player as you could hope for. He hits. He wins faceoffs. He’s not selfish. He has size. He’s good in the corners. He’s good in front of the net or out on the point. He can kill penalties, and he’s fantastic on the power play. He can play with anyone on his line and he makes everyone else look good while doing it. If I were to ask Koivu to work on something, I’d say that if he could duplicate Rolston’s slapshot, then he’d be the perfect player.
And Koivu’s abilities are contagious. Watch Sheppard. I see in Sheppard what we saw in Koivu several years ago, except that Sheppard is further along. I think Sheppard is going to progress faster with Koivu out there ahead of him.
That was better.
Everyone picked it up, and I really liked that they got a full team effort of beating on Foppa. They gotta keep doing that, and work on a couple other guys too. Boogaard needs to keep hitting everything he can catch. I think their D might just be starting to feel it a bit. They can’t let up though. I don’t think the Wild can win a skating match with the Av.
Now if they could only play from ahead a bit more…
Oh, I just read the stats. 7 hits for Burns. Not bad.
Does anybody else see that Koivu = Foppa in his prime.
From last nights discussion… whoever thought that Rolston’s game could improve is smoking some serious rock. He has elevated his game big time for the playoffs. He seems to be skating faser, digging more, and even hitting occassionally. I would also like to point out that PMB had a damn good game. He definitey crashed the net more than a few times, he got an assist, and he was directly responsible for helping Koivu steal that puck for the go ahead goal. The boys had a great game all the way around and if they keep this up there is no reason the shouldn’t win the series. Oh, and go Radio! You got some brass balls dude.
3 cheers for the boys in Red!
I wish they would play like the did in the 3rd… they would definitely win the cup. I thought they looked a bit fragile in the 1st, and my perception was the Avalanche seemed to own the 2nd.
I thought PMB did a good job at stepping out of his comfort zone, and am convinced his forays into the middle threw the Avs D off a bit… might have even led to Carney’s goal!? At any rate, keep it going Butch!
Koivu was outstanding, as was Backstrom. I almost can’t handle the suspense of these must-win playoff games. I’m hopeful for a split or sweep in Denver.
GO WILD!!!
Also, just watched the clip on Foster doing the “LPH” before the game. It’s gotta be tough for him to be on the sidelines watching that game. Although, it looks like he is making some progress… so that is good.
ATW: completely agree on Rolston. He is a gamer!
Every player on the team is doing well. I could not fault anyone. It is a good mix of “team chemistry”. Even when Gabby is not showing up on the scoresheet, he is making less obvious plays.
Open note to JL:
Did the crowd get on the refs enough for you last night?
Sign Rol$ton!!!
He has been very good in this series.
Tom Reid’s it is for game 5. Hopefully they’ll reserve a table for us.
I’m burning the Mitchell jersey too… 
Blogger for the Denver Post makes a big deal of Wild fans throwing things on the ice after the penalty call late in the game: http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2008/04/11/want-some-cheese-with-that-whine-wild-fans/ : unacceptable behavior if so, I once watched on the NHL network a “classic” game with Montreal where their fans threw one heck of a lot of things on the ice to where that could not be ignored and one would not question them as being real hockey fans. Even at the Pittsburgh game with Ottawa, they had to stop play and clean up the ice.
Unless the Wild get too banged up: I’d think whoever wins this series will be all that much more stronger for playing it against the next opponent but Colorado is just one team I don’t like at all. Come On Wild!
Blogger for the Denver Post makes a big deal of Wild fans throwing things on the ice after the penalty call late in the game:
i saw one towel that had to be picked up.
I’d say we must be doing pretty good if that is all they can b!tch about
off to see if the wild’s luck has rubbed off on me at the craps table. enjoy your saturday
Did you see that a fan try to climb the glass when the Wild were converging upon Carney? That was crazy.
I love it.
So one towel constitutes ‘throwing thing on the ice’?
Sunshine I saw that too. It was pretty funny. They should have thrown him over the glass… but then he would have been arrested.
Green*…enjoy. I’ve spent way too much money (and not NiNY’s) on trying to ‘learn’ that game.
Stick to 247 deck blackjack…
I am going to be Dallas when game 5 is played… I see the game is on Ch45 locally in MN… Where can a guy catch it in Dallas????
Ha! After that Sharks game, the fans were throwing all kinds of stuff on the ice. Big deal.
Yep, it was one towel not objects(plural) like Dater said..you watch though, that mo’fo Dater will delete all those posts critical of him..the guy’s a tool.
Got last minute tickets to the game and was awfully glad I got the chance. I agree with G* that the crowd wasn’t as loud as on Wed, but still better than most anywhere else in the NHL…once again I’m hoarse, but glad for the win instead of the loss..makes gravelly voice seem worth it.
We held the Avs off in their best period, the 2nd,which is an awesome confidence builder. Not getting deflated after that tying goal from a BS call..champion material.
Gabby and demitra both played better, particularly when they didn’t have the puck..but Gabby, if he works just a littl smarter as I know he can, he’ll explode in the series and have a break-out game which will spell certain doom for the Avs. It seemed to me he was holding his stick too tightly, a lot off passes/handling of the puck rolling off his stick, he relaxes…he’ll be ready..hopefully the win will relax him to play like we know he can.
I can’t stand floppy..I want him crushed..speaking of which, Boogard almost clocked a guy so badly, he woulda needed a stretcher. Even with the near-miss the guy was still favoring his leg (with a trail of yellow following behind) as he skated to the bench. Thought boogie had a good game too..the Avs passes were much more hurried when he was out there and he got a few hits…which I like.
I apologize that we weren’t able to connect at McGovern’s, but it sounds like it’s possible that was the impetus that led us to victory last night.
We got there at about 5:40pm (River Center lot was full so we got foiled, and had to double back to park). We looked around for 20 minutes but could not find anyone. We also could not find a place to sit. Sounds like Russotans were wandering aimlessly. I uttered “Russoville?” to a few people, and they just looked at me like I had a third eye.
Great game. The X was rockin’. I was happy that the Avs goal was on our end so we got to see Yoda score the game winner. Of course we also got to see the bogus call on Kimmy, and the game tying goal as well.
Did Radio seriously get stomped on Simon style?
I did see one beer bottle go flying onto the ice, and a cup as well. Nothing other than those things, and the towel.
We did get on TV with Gorg, and a bunch of crazy colored wig wearing Wild fans.
My mom was watching the kids. She turned it to FSN, and the kids go “Hey, look gramma! Daddy and grampa are on TV! Can we turn it back to SpongeBob now?”.
chow
Bandgeek, what were you and Mr Bandgeek wearing around McGoverns?
it sure the heck seems like we’ve outplayed col in both games as they go to OT twice. What do we need to do to get up early in game 3 and make them chase us? i like it better when we take it to teams… thats been my issue all season, we dont sustain a strong series of games back to back to back. I hope we score first and second and then make them chase us and win going away 4-2 to convince them we’re better and will be moving on to the next round.
How long does it take to recover from surgery for Schultz? Can he play in this series at all? Sure could use him driving sakic and foresbery into the boards on a regular basis. We’re a very different team now then we were 30 days ago, all the defensemen changes are killing us. I dont like the idea of Kim, Carney and Hill being asked to skate 25 min. games. that will not work long term. Go WILD, just win 2 more and then win at home.
