OK, so I got the score wrong, as well as the victor, but I did get one thing right on the award-winning “Russo Radio” show on KSTP on Wednesday night (award-winning in the minds of my friends and family).

Pavol Demitra’s got a history of making his former teams pay. I so wanted to remind listeners of that fact, I made Matt Thomas late for break.

But hey, when you’re right, you’re right, and I was right.

Demitra’s scored 10 goals and 18 points in 11 games against St. Louis since he left the Blues. I don’t feel like looking up what he’s done against LA since he left there, but I know he had the one overtime winner for the Wild and definitely three or four assists.

Tonight, the chrome-headed Slovak said, “Thank you very much for having no interest in keeping me” (not really, that’s my quote) by scoring the tying goal on a second-period power play and assisting on Daniel Sedin’s third-period winner.

(On a quick side note, should I be concerned that my headphones are giving my ears little electrical shocks as I listen to the Killers right now? Excuse me while I take a sip of water).

Back to Demo, he said the only thing that would have been more “interesting” for him would have been to see best friend Marian Gaborik line up against him. Actually, seeing Gaborik in uniform again would have been “interesting” for all of us.

Jacques Lemaire flipped Mikko Koivu and James Sheppard tonight so Koivu could play on the checking line with Stephane Veilleux and Antti Miettinen and match up against Demitra and the Sedin Twins.

The Wild checking line actually did a solid job for the most part, but one breakdown deep in the Wild zone resulted in Sedin’s winner.

By the way, maybe next year if Gaborik’s on the Canucks, the Wild can buy the Sedin Twins for about $6 million each. Just a thought that I’m sure will be on every rumor site in the league tomorrow.

Lemaire felt the Wild didn’t have its legs tonight, and it was surprising how the Canucks, who played the night before, picked up steam in the third and the Wild didn’t.

The Canucks took a three-point lead on the Wild in the Northwest Division, but the Wild has played three fewer games.

Koivu scored two goals for the fourth time in his career, including one shorthanded breakaway.

Nik Backstrom suffered only his second career home regulation loss to a division opponent. He’s now 17-2-5 at home against the Northwest. It was also Backstrom’s first home regulation loss since March 4 (11-1-3).

Cal Clutterbuck had eight hits tonight in less than 10 minutes. It says he played three shifts in the third. I thought it was less actually, which I thought was peculiar. Clutterbuck’s got 59 hits, a team-high, in 15 games.

We’ll see if the Brent Burns forward experiment continues. Erik Reitz had his first sub-par game in awhile. He took a tripping penalty on Ryan Johnson and was on for one goal, having a Willie Mitchell shot get caught in his skates before Steve Bernier scored. Reitz was benched in the third after two shifts.

OK, that’s it from here. Brian “Stensaation” Stensaas on tomorrow as I write my Sunday stuff and decompress from the Kevin Falness opening on Ch. 45 tonight.

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OK, Wild has 19 skaters on the ice. The extra, being Craig Weller, but he’s scratched.

I watched the Wild employee hockey game today. Those of note who played: there was Mike Greenlay, Matt Majka, trainer Don Fuller, Matt Benz, Chris Snow, Jamie MacDonald, Robert the Intern and Brad Bombardir, who was only good because he was “playing against us donkeys,” said Greenlay.

The best player was a guy in a purple jersey. They played with one goalie, by the way.

The most memorable moment was when Robert the Intern absolutely creamed a teammate – the only girl in the game. She went down. She was in pain. She left with an “upper body injury.” Robert sustained a “lower body injury.” Robert told me after it was his knee. He’s since been fired for telling me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 6:43 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.