Yo, yo, yo.

Every player practiced today except injured Marian Gaborik, who continues to skate on his own. Owen Nolan looks A-OK to play tomorrow against Columbus, meaning the Wild will have to make a roster move, either putting Gaborik on injured reserve or sending a player to the minors.

The Blue Jackets, by the way, play tonight against the Rangers and will be the Wild’s first Western Conference opponent.

Not much to report to you today, other than Jacques Lemaire was in an animated, jovial mood. He should have been on stage today. Every question led to a demonstration. He was running around the interview room like he was playing dodgeball.

Just proves again, Lemaire is most happy when his team plays the way he wants it to play. He was delighted with last night’s game, so he was in a good mood despite the way the Wild lost in the end. But when the Wild doesn’t play the way Lemaire wants them to, even if the Wild wins, Lemaire is sure to be in a miserable mood.

He had a conversation with Brent Burns on the ice. He told Burns, other than those four minutes in the end, he played a perfect game and to keep it up.

Lemaire was also funny talking about Derek Boogaard, who’s already got two assists after having no points last season.

Talking about Benoit Pouliot’s goal, Lemaire said (and it’s too bad you can’t hear the comical tone), “When Boogey got the puck, the net was wide open. And there were two sets of legs. And he hit one of them. And it went back to Benoit in the air. But Ben took it, put it down and shot in. What was your question?”

In other words, don’t ask about Boogaard’s offense.

Pretty up tempo practice. Josh Harding, with his father and sister in the stands, was beaten to a pulp. This guy probably took 10 shots to the mask and shoulders. Then Pierre-Marc Bouchard barrelled into him, but at least it wasn’t the Boogeyman.

By the way, USA Hockey has announced a “major news conference” for Monday at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, and according to sources, it’ll be announced the city’s been awarded the 2011 world junior championships over St. Paul and Grand Forks.

What else? What else? Oh, I got like four emails ripping into Lemaire for calling a timeout there with six or seven minutes left and leading 3-1. My response to each emailer: Are you kidding me? It was the only move, so much so, I repeated in the press box twice, “Is Jacques not calling a timeout?”

Skoula, Schultz, Veilleux, Clutterbuck, and Belanger had just been trapped in the defensive zone for a minute. The Wild iced the puck. It was not allowed to make a line change. Timeout was the obvious move there to rest the players. Belanger wound up playing a shift of 1:49. Skoula played a shift of 2:19. Schultz 2:02. An average shift folks is 40-45 seconds.

If you’re actually one that’s criticizing Jacques for this, you either weren’t paying attention or you’re just searching for things to rip Jacques about.

OK, good day.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 2:28 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.