So after last night’s game you want to see the Wild skate a little bit more? Trust me, the team has.

After 45 minutes or so of drills (no cheap ones, either), coach Jacques Lemaire had the team leisurely skate in a circle. Then, accompanied by the chirp of a whistle, each line was called out to do one lap. Hard.

“Gold! … tweet … Blue! … tweet … Grey! … tweet … D! … tweet”

This went on for a good 5-10 minutes, which if you’ve ever skated laps you know is a long time.

Was there a message being sent?

“It’s not a message. It’s what I feel the team needs,” Lemaire said.

And that is?

“Well, we skated,” Lemaire answered. “I just feel that it was the proper time to give them a little skate. Period.”

Lemaire figured it has been about a month since he put the Wild through such a rigorous workout.

“And it won’t be the last one, there will be more,” Lemaire said, laughing.

Asked if the skating was something the team needed, veteran Owen Nolan said, “That’s the coach’s call not mine. I don’t have any idea.”

One player who was flying during these skates was Cal Clutterbuck. Perhaps the kid had a little extra oomph in his step after playing a solid game against the Canucks (three shots on goal, eight hits in under 10 minutes). Or maybe it was the blades. Before practice, Clutterbuck laced up a new pair of Bauers. They replaced the old pair he had been using since last training camp.

In watching Clutterbuck from the pressbox last night, I was certain he was going to get his first NHL goal. Or at least his first NHL point. I wasn’t alone.

“Oh, yeah,” Clutterbuck said today. “Last night was definitely the closest I came [to scoring]. I think I had three good chances last night, and maybe I can think of three the last six, seven games. It felt good just to get close.”

I predict Clutterbuck will score soon, even if he doesn’t get the most minutes. His solid play has not gone unnoticed by those with far better hockey minds than me. Lemaire said Clutterbuck has one of the best shots on the team, and getting a goal out of him would be a bonus considering Lemaire did not expect Clutterbuck to play this much this season. Now, it appears it will be hard to keep him off the team.

“I think it’s going to come,” Lemaire said. “He will get some goals.”

By the way, things were switched up a little bit today for the top three lines.

Bouchard was with Sheppard and Veilleux; Belanger with Miettinen and Burns; and Nolan with Koivu and Brunette. Perhaps this will shake loose some offense out of this team. Refer to the previous post for some startling numbers …

The homestand continues Saturday night with St. Louis in town. Russo steps back into the lead role then. Time for me to get some more work done.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 2:43 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.