Good day from Chateau de Rousseau. Short practice down at Parade this morning, just the way I like ‘em.

I was scooped by Brian Lawton. He fired Barry Melrose.

Look at this paragraph I had in this Sunday’s column that now won’t see the light of day: Most NHL coaches have a lasting power of three years. Like a gallon of milk, you might as well put an expiration date on them. Some spoil sooner than others, like if you sniff into the container that holds Barry Melrose, you’ll find it’s beginning to curdle.

This is not surprising folks at all. The signs of this were showing already early last month when the Wild was in Tampa. Things came to a head the other day when Melrose said a lot of strong stuff to the stars of the Lightning before a practice in Florida. Melrose then left the arena during practice, admittedly because he said things that caused the players to not want him around.

How soon before ESPN hires him back?

As for the Wild, Owen Nolan was given the day off. Jacques Lemaire said it was just a maintenance day and he’ll play tomorrow against Columbus. Nolan played 18 minutes last night, had two assists and was coming off an injury that kept him out five games, so giving him the day off made sense. In fact, the veteran will likely get a lot of practices off I’d imagine.

Jacques Lemaire reiterated today that defenseman Brent Burns will continue as a winger for awhile. Burns had a solid game last night. He missed the net three or four times, but all were scoring chances and you know eventually those will turn into goals. He had five hits on the forecheck and brought the energy we’ve all grown accustomed.

Burns said today he’d play goalie if the Wild wanted him to, and he was a pretty mean street hockey goalie as a kid.

As usual, Burns was pretty hilarious today, as you’ll read tomorrow.

It’s not often you can take a top-10 NHL defenseman, put him at forward and not miss a beat, but that’s how good Burns is. As Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock told me during training camp, Burns is a hybrid and when he goes forward, he attacks better than most forwards.

Lemaire said Burns will get more ice time tomorrow. He only played two shifts totalling 46 seconds on the penalty kill, but if the Wild gets into penalty trouble tomorrow, Burns will get shifts, and yes, as a forward.

Lemaire talked a lot today about the penalty kill, which only has allowed four goals all year. He’s trying to get more and more bodies on there, especially James Sheppard, who’s been very good the past four games.

Dare I tell you, but at some point I may have to risk jinxing Martin Skoula and write about how well he’s playing. Lemaire said, “I’ll take a couple Skoula’s.”

Kim Johnsson has been dynamite, too, skating the puck out of trouble.

Lastly, Wild radio personality Kevin “String Bet” Falness was asking Jacques today about what’s more difficult, playing the penalty kill as a defenseman or as a forward.

Lemaire, grinning, so you knew eventually he’d come up with a punchline, said, “You have the goaltender, you have a defenseman, if you do make a mistake on defense, there’s one guy that can stop it. If you’re as far … from the net, it’s the best to make a mistake.”

“As an example,” Lemaire said to Falness, “If you would play with us one day, you’d be as far as possible from the net. You’d stand at the [opposite] blue line and wait there.”

I bet Falness’ hockey is as good as his poker — embarrassing. 

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 2:32 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.