I know, long delay. After practice, I sat down with NHLPA Executive Director Paul Kelly for an interesting conversation regarding the economics of the game and other issues. You can read more about this in my Sunday column.

Kelly, who just had his one-year anniversary as the ousted-Ted Saskin’s replacement, is currently on his annual fall tour of teams. He’s got a 90-minute meeting planned with the Wild that just begun. Kelly in traveling with NHLPA compatriots Darby Hendrickson (yes that Darby Hendrickson) and Glenn Healy.

The Wild had an optional practice today. About a dozen guys skated.

Brent Burns did not skate and is walking gingerly. Jacques Lemaire said he thinks he’ll play and Burns is listed as “possible” on the Wild’s injury report. He’s got a lower body injury. If Burns can’t play, Tomas Mojzis will get the call because Erik Reitz stayed in the Twin Cities with the flu.

Just dawned on me, yesterday morning, I said to one of the Wild PR guys, “Uh-oh,” when I saw Reitz coughing away. Flu bugs in hockey locker room circulate like the plague, and the Wild begins five of six on the road here in Dallas tomorrow.

Antti Miettinen is probable to make his return to Dallas tomorrow. He’s got an upper body injury. Come to think of it, I’ve got a splitting upper-body injury as we speak. It’s just pounding away, but the Star Tribune policy is not to comment about headaches — I mean upper-body injuries — to reporters.

Oh, Marian Gaborik is here. He came to get treatment. Jacques thought he was going to practice, but Gaborik didn’t. 

From the Elias Sports Bureau:

The Wild is the first NHL team to go the first seven games of the season without allowing a power play goal since the 1962-63 Toronto Maple Leafs. The last teams to go eight games to begin a season without yielding a power play goals were Detroit (eight games) and Montreal (10 games) in the 1955-56 season.

Oh, and if you didn’t see Hockey Night in Canada’s After Hours on Saturday night (it’s a great show), Vancouver Canucks shift disturber Alex Burrows was Scott Oake and Marc Crawford’s guest. The player Burrows dislikes playing against the most? Pierre-Marc Bouchard. Here’s the video.

After two years of talking to Bouchard about Burrows, I can promise you the feeling is mutual. Just look at some of the archived quotes over the years from Bouchard, like say, this one: “He runs around, he tries to hurt you, he talks a lot on the ice – too much. Sometimes he just says some stupid stuff and I know a lot of guys ask him to [fight] and he doesn’t want to go.”

And that quote actually came well before last year’s “incident.” Remember last season, Bouchard actually fought Burrows after the agitator speared Bouchard.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 11:21 am 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.