This line says it all: Jacques Lemaire, as we were walking out of the press conference, said to me with a loud laugh, “They have a day off tomorrow for this game! Can you believe it?”

No, but I thank you because I don’t mind not venturing out to the X on a Sunday, especially when I have a really good story ready to be written for Monday in the can (I’ll keep you guessing on that).

The Wild was not very good tonight. Man, this was a mind-numbing game to watch for two periods.

Thank goodness Erik Reitz scored his first NHL goal 1:48 into the third period, because that at least opened the game up and added some desperation to it.

There was some question as to whether Reitz or Brent Burns scored the goal, but it was eventually changed after the game. Burns didn’t feel it hit his stick and the off-ice officials felt replays showed it went off the Blue Jackets defenseman’s skate.

For Reitz, who played a season-high 15-plus minutes tonight, that’s a pretty special goal. People forget, but Reitz, 26, has been in this organization as long as Marian Gaborik and Nick Schultz. He played 363 games in Houston before becoming an NHL regular.

The Wild’s lead was short-lived. James Sheppard committed a defensive-zone turnover and Rick Nash made him pay.

But in the shootout, Niklas Backstrom, who used to be the worst shootout goalie in the NHL, denied the skilled Kristian “Beetlejuice” Huselius and the oh-so-talented rookie Derick Brassard.

Antti Miettinen scored the shootout clinching goal after defenseman Marek Zidlicky scored before him, which was technically the deciding goal (CORRECTION).

It dawned on me during the shootout, but in July when I sat down with owner Craig Leipold for that huge feature I wrote on him in August, I got a Zidlicky scouting report from Leipold because he used to own Nashville – where Zidlicky came from. I never used the quote (I was going to but then Zidlicky got hurt), so here it is finally. Read the last line, especially.

“Great hands, unbelievable skill moving the puck. He’ll add a really good dimension for this team,” Leipold said.

“I had nothing to do with that one, I mean that truly. Of all the players in Nashville, he was one of the few ones I really haven’t had much dialogue with. Very quiet. But he is a guy who put points up, played the PK.”

Leipold added, laughing, “And the shootout, he’s unbelievable, which is good, because we need shootouts guys.”

Anyway, the Wild stole this one. The players weren’t sharp. Remember how loose they were in the morning skate. Lemaire said it was the same thing in the game. “The legs were there. No brain. I tried to get different brains together. Didn’t work.”

On Huselius’ goal – the first of the game for Columbus after Benoit Pouliot’s power-play goal, the Wild had three forwards trapped behind the Blue Jackets’ net, which created the odd-man rush.

“We want offense, but in front of the net, not behind the net,” Lemaire quipped.

How about this stat I uncovered? The Wild has 22 even-strength goals, tied for last in the NHL with Ottawa of all teams. Reitz’s goal snapped a stretch of 191 minutes, 52 seconds, without an even-strength goal for the Wild.

OK, that’s it. Read my game notebook in Sunday’s paper. Funny stuff from Cal Clutterbuck on his shouting match with the Great One.

And remember, read Monday’s story I’m doing. Shameless plugs, I know. Other than writing the Monday story, I’m hoping to take Sunday off, so you may not hear from me on the blog. If that’s the case, talk to you after Monday’s practice in Pittsburgh.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 6:55 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.