Don’t forget to vote today. If you walk into any Starbucks and tell them you voted, free coffee.

I plan to vote at least five or six times.

Defenseman Brent Burns (upper body), who is still not walking well, is not playing tonight. Erik Reitz will play in his place. Reitz, by the way, is the Wild’s only American, hailing from Michigan. He voted absentee like this beat writer.

Also, Niklas Backstrom, Burns, Marian Gaborik and Mikko Koivu are on the All-Star ballot. Voting process is on the bottom of this blog.

The Wild is facing one of the NHL’s toughest teams tonight. Coach Jacques Lemaire all but conceded the game, as you’ll see by his comments below, because of the injuries to Burns, Gaborik and Owen Nolan (Nolan’s face by the way is still all over this city and he still owns a restaurant here called Brittania Arms, a great British pub I’ve spent a pretty penny in over the years).

Lemaire says this league is made up of Detroit and San Jose, then everybody else. Here’s Lemaire on tonight’s game:

“We can not turn the puck over to them in critical places. That is key No. 1.
Key No. 2 would be power play, special teams.
And Key No. 3 would be praying.”

“This is one of the top teams. There’s probably a lot of things we’ll be disappointed, or we’ll really be excited. They’re scoring, they play well defensively, they play a good game, always tough to win here. And us, we’re full of injuries. We’re playing against a team that is at its best and we’ve got half of our team out, so lets be a realistic a bit.

“If we can give a good game, stay in the game and play a tight game, it’s just going to be good for us – stay in the game as long as we can, keep the score tight as long as we can. That’s what we want. It’ll be good for them. It’ll be a great experience to be a part of a game that will be intense and playing against great players.

“I would love to have our whole team. I know we’re playing against a top nhl team. I’d like to see how far we are from that team. But I won’t see that tonight. I know we’re far. ”

Now watch the Wild win, eh?

As for the All-Star ballot, voting begins Nov. 12. Like today, vote early and often:

In a first for all major professional sports leagues, the NHL will
provide real-time All-Star fan balloting results online at NHL.com. From
Nov. 12 through Jan. 2, NHL fans will be able to vote as often as they like
to select the starting lineups for the 2009 NHL All-Star Game in Montreal.
Fans around the world can vote online via interactive English and French
ballots at Vote.NHL.com. Those in the U.S. and Canada also will be able to
cast their votes via text message using any wireless carrier. During the
voting period, real-time results will be available exclusively on
Vote.NHL.com/results. This marks the third consecutive year the All-Star
Balloting process is entirely digital.

Fans can vote for up to six Eastern Conference players and six
Western Conference players: three forwards, two defensemen and one
goaltender. For the first time, fans will be permitted to select as few as
one player — a balloted player or write-in — per online ballot at
Vote.NHL.com or via text message. The three forwards, two defensemen and
one goaltender from each Conference receiving the most votes will comprise
the starting lineups. Each of the 30 NHL clubs has at least two
representatives on the ballot.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 10:41 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.