Ok, I’m back. Clean teeth, no cavaties! But I need my wisdom teeth sliced out of my jaw with sharp instruments.

It sounds like fun.

Owen Nolan skated this morning and is close, but he won’t play. Jacques Lemaire said the team doesn’t want to take the risk, but he will play Saturday vs. Columbus. The Wild is being cautious because Nolan wanted to play in Atlanta and aggravated the injury, so better safe than sorry this time.

Marek Zidlicky will likely play for Erik Reitz tonight and Pierre-Marc Bouchard will play for Tomas Mojzis or Cal Clutterbuck, Lemaire said. It should be noted Mojzis skated as a defenseman in the skate, which would seem to mean he is out.

Both Bouchard and Zidlicky were on injured reserve. The Wild only had one free spot according to my quick math, so Nolan or Marian Gaborik will have to be placed on IR I believe to ensure Bouchard and Zidlicky can play.
Both were injured more than a week ago, so IR would just be a technicality to activate the others. No word yet, although this decision had to be made at 2 p.m., I believe.

The Wild is the only NHL team still unbeaten. The Wild was the last NHL team to lose last year, too.

Remember, the Wild went 5-0 last year and 6-0 the year before. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Wild is already the only team to begin two consecutive seasons with 5+ straight wins.  But that’s not really a fair comparison since no team before 2005-06 could win a game in a shootout.  Every game has to have a winner now and that was not true for most of NHL history.  Minnesota would not have had a 5+ game winning streak to begin 2006-07 without shootout wins and the same this year.

Not much else going on.

Significant loss tonight, but Buffalo captain/defenseman Craig Rivet won’t play after arthroscopic lower body surgery. Oh, that’s if he was on the Wild. He’s on the Sabres, so he had knee surgery.

In the Buffalo News today, you can also read details after the two broken bones in Tim Connolly’s back.

I’ll be back later.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 11:28 am 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.