So you want to be a sportswriter? For those Eagan High journalism students who emailed and called me this week for your papers, one of your questions was how I handle stressful deadlines. The answer of course is cool, calm and collected.

Exhibit A was tonight. Talk about rewriting a story on deadline. A winning game story turned into a losing game story in about eight minutes of real time tonight. And I think I only let one expletive fly — a Russo record.

I blame my sports editor, Glen Crevier, who shook my hand goodbye with about seven minutes left accompanied by the words, “It’s 3-1.”

As in, what could really happen? Not much Glen.

The Wild had this one pretty sewn up, it appeared. But one redirected goal by Adam Mair turned into madness when the hottest stick in the league found the puck, the one carried by some local guy named Thomas Vanek, who had scores of friends and family in the stands. I think he played a small school across the river.

Remember, earlier in the period, Vanek took a Brent Burns blast to the gut. Vanek was in agony, but brushed it off by having that puck come to him through a caught-in between Burns.

In overtime, Kim Johnsson lost his stick. Burns went behind the net to help. Derek Roy was left in front and crashed the net when Henrik Tallinder put the puck in the crease.

So, after holding a 3-1 lead with 56 minutes left and holding Buffalo to just two shots in those first 16 minutes of the period, Mair and Vanek scored 46 seconds apart and Roy scored 44 seconds into OT.

The only thing I could hear when Roy scored was Rick Jeanneret’s reverborating voice in my head: “GOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!” screamed the Sabres’ broadcast legend, and I am not kidding when I say that Rick’s booth is above my head and about five to my right. Check out  NHL.com later and listen to it. I’m positive I wasn’t hearing things. I promise you, it was classic Jeanneret — maybe the most exciting broadcaster in the league. And he’s been doing this since before I was born, I’m pretty sure. In light of day, I listened to the clip, it wasn’t GOAAAAALLLLL I was hearing, it was “SCOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEESSSS!”

Burns had a strong game until that sequence late in the third. He broke up the 2-on-1 that led to Benoit Pouliot’s goal. He also scored a weird power-play goal 29 seconds into the third. Burns dumped the puck, Ryan Miller casually played it, stood there and Burns just swept it into the goal.

Burns might have assisted on his own goal, but he admitted he assisted on a couple of Buffalo’s too.

Miller said the Burns goal was “the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

This was the second time in history the Wild has blown a two-goal lead with less than five minutes in regulation and lost. The previous time was Dec. 16, 2001, vs. Colorado. It lost 3-2 to the Avs. The Wild led 2-0 with 4:28 left. Joe Sakic scored in OT.

Things happen so quick in this game. I mean, one unlucky goal, and all you know what breaks loose. And Nik Backstrom was pretty doggone good in the first period.

But the Wild got caught getting comfortable. I was surprised during a third-period power play midway through when Jacques Lemaire didn’t use Burns. He used pointmen Bouchard and Zidlicky, then Johnsson and Bergeron. I didn’t get that one.

But the sign of things to come came with about seven or eight minutes left when the Wild got pinned in its zone for like 1:15. Lemaire even had to use a timeout to give his guys a breather after an icing.

Pregame stuff:

I’ll be back on with the lineups before the game, but if you haven’t seen, Pavol Demitra’s out 3-4 weeks in Vancouver. Here’s the story per TSN.

Owen Nolan’s been placed on injured reserve to make room for both Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Marek Zidlicky tonight. This is just a formality and Nolan can still return Saturday if activated. And you bet this was done just so there are no headlines throughout the NHL that says, “Marian Gaborik placed on IR.”

Erik Reitz and Tomas Mojzis are scratched.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 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.