Happy Halloween everybody.

The Wild pumpkins above — I can’t seem to get pictures to look good on the blog — were carved by my friend Mike, his brother John and their eight-year-old nephew Kyle, a Wild fanatic.

That BOOgaard one is cool with the ghost. Get it? Boooooo!

OK, onto the game.

Basically, the Wild returned home just long enough to give their fans enough aggravation to last the nine days it’ll be gone on this upcoming four-game trip. I’m especially looking forward to yet another early morning flight in a few hours to Phoenix.

It was another record setting night for the Wild, only this one for futility. The Wild tied its franchise record for most power-play opportunities WITHOUT scoring a goal. It went 0 for 10. How about this stat? The Wild has gone 0 for 9 or worse five times in franchise history. All five times came at home.

“When we had a great opportunity, the shot was either wide or on the ice. And this goalie (Carey Price) is really good on every shot along the ice,” coach Jacques Lemaire said.

With every wasted power play, the pressure just built in the arena, and then the Wild was in deep trouble. In the second period, Montreal took six consecutive minors. The Wild had four 5-on-3’s, although only one was a long one.

But the Wild could get nothing going and really never generated any true great chances, in my humble opinion.

At one point, the Wild was caught so unaware after a 5-on-3, Robert Lang emerged from the penalty box to go on a shorthanded breakaway.

It had to be frustrating to watch if you’re a Wild fan. For instance, defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron had seven of his shots blocked.

As for Brent Burns skating some shifts at forwards, Lemaire actually made this decision after warmups, he said. Owen Nolan missed the game with a lower body injury (he missed three recently with what appeared to be a right hip injury, but I don’t know if this is the same thing).

Because the Wild basically has relied on one line this month, Lemaire decided he wanted Burns up front to create another scoring threat. It worked when he scored 1:31 into the game. Lemaire, the king of checking, said you can’t check all the time. You’ve got to score sometimes, he said.

He also called out Pierre-Marc Bouchard for being invisible the last few games.

According to the injury report, Nolan will not initially make the trip. Marian Gaborik will be evaluated Friday, but it hasn’t been decided if he’ll make the trip yet. He skated with the guys during an optional this morning, and with so many practices on this weird four-game trip that has no back-to-back’s, you’d think he’d be there.

By the way, the Wild didn’t lose both games of a back-to-back set in regulation during the 2007-08 season. Here was their first try at back-to-back’s this season, and it lost both games.

Talk to you from Phoenix. Practice is 2 p.m. PT time Friday, so you won’t hear from me until very late.

Happy Trick-or-Treating, and you better wear a costume, or Larry David won’t give you candy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 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.