Four hundred comments, and it’s not even 11:30 p.m. I’m betting you’re stressed.  

After the Wild held Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to one shot apiece two weeks back on VERSUS, the suits at the network had to be freaking out that the defensively-superb Wild would appear on VERSUS on the next two Mondays.

But hey, sloppy hockey is exciting hockey as someone once told me, and the network got two high-scoring affairs — a 4-3 Wild win over Washington and tonight’s weird, wacky and wild 6-5 Colorado win.

Last week after the Dallas loss, Jacques Lemaire said, “We’re a team that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes,” or something to that effect. Tonight, the Wild made about a season’s full of mistakes.

In my four seasons in Minnesota, I don’t think I’ve covered a worse defensive performance. In the first two periods, the Wild’s defensive coverage was hideous. It was truly mind-boggling. It was every defenseman. Forwards weren’t supporting. Just uncharacteristic things, like not moving the puck, waiting too long to move the puck, losing guys, two or three guys skating right to the puck carrier.

Kim Johnsson may have to get his C rescinded after that one. Minus-3. On the Milan Hejduk goal, Nick Schultz looked bad by coughing it up, but Marek Zidlicky put Schultz in a ridiculous position by waiting so long to clear the puck on a penalty kill, that he rimmed it around to Schultz under pressure.

There was more. I could document Zidlicky’s shifts if you really want me to, but I won’t put you through that torture. There was Marc-Andre Bergeron flat-footed on the one breakaway goal. There was Martin Skoula (who was undoubtedly the Wild’s best defenseman tonight) on the Marek Svatos goal. I said out loud that Erik Reitz was the only defenseman to not mess up. And then, guess what happened? Turnover behind the net, and Niklas Backstrom had to make a sick save.

The Wild played well in the third, but it wasn’t enough. The first two periods did them in.

The Wild allowed six goals at home for the fifth time in history and first since Jan. 16, 2006 to Ottawa. The four-goal second period tied a Wild record for most goals scored in a period. It’s the first time in team history that it’s scored five or more goals and lost (69-1).

And as Lemaire said, if Backstrom didn’t make like four tremendous saves, the Avs could have had 10. Compassionately, Lemaire yanked Backstrom after that second period.

Yet, the Wild was still in this game because it’s red-hot power play (3 for 4 after going 5 for 11 Saturday in Nashville) clicked and because Peter Budaj was terrible (three goals on Minnesota’s first six shots, five on 17 in the game).

The Wild has scored 22 goals in the past five games. Now it better get that defense back in order, which I guarantee will be the sole focus of Tuesday’s practice. Stensaas will cover that one. Have fun. Bring a book because it could be a long one.

Some tidbits:

– Pierre-Marc Bouchard had two goals and an assist. It was his 12th career three-point game, eighth-career two-goal game. That’s goals in back-to-back games for the first time since Nov. 2007.

– Mikko Koivu scored a goal and two assists to extend his point streak to five games, tying his career high. Koivu has seven goals and 12 points in the past eight games. Koivu now has 98 assists. Only five players have record 100 with the Wild. Koivu now has 144 points, moving past Pascal Dupuis for sixth-most in team history. 

– Owen Nolan has a goal in four straight games — two off his career-high.

– Brent Burns had a goal and an assist, giving him 100 points. He became the 13th player in Wild history to reach 100.

– Eric Belanger skated in his 500th game.

– The Wild scored at least three power-play goals in consecutive games for the second time in history.

– The Wild is 10-5 this season when scoring first. Last season, the Wild was 36-4-5 when scoring first (so one more regulation loss than all of last season is the point I am trying to make).

– Cal Clutterbuck and Colton Gillies were the scratches. I’ll bet my job Clutterbuck plays Wednesday. I know it’s tempting Jacques, but …

– Andrew Brunette will go on NHL Live on XM/NHL Network at 11:15 Tuesday. Jim Dowd is co-hosting, so it should make for good radio/TV.

– Good night Irene.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 6:31 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.