Unlike Sunday, when six skaters and the two goalies showed up for practice the day before a game, Wild practice this afternoon was mandatory. Jacques Lemaire was asked if, after last night’s six goals allowed, Sunday’s skate was the last optional practice for a while. I’ll do my best to type out Lemaire’s exact reaction: “Heh. He he heh. Yessss.”

Yeah. Jacques was laughing. After seeing what he called the two worst periods of hockey last night, what else was there to do?

Lemaire, known as a defensive coach, said he actually slept well after last night’s 11-goal game, though. The reason? “I was very tired.”

The two scratches from last night, Cal Clutterbuck and Colton Gillies, were the first two on the ice this afternoon. The entire team then skated through a 50-minute session. Kurtis Foster was even there, though he just skated for about the first 15 minutes.

In a shocker, a lot of the practice was spent inside the blue line … And if you believe that’s actually shocking, you weren’t paying attention last night or haven’t yet watched your TiVo replay. Breakdowns in the defensive zone killed the Wild last night.

Josh Harding went through four sticks this afternoon. Think there was a little intensity?

The Wild has played six of its past seven at Xcel Energy Center and is 2-4 in that stretch. So much for a home-ice advantage.

Lemaire said it is a lack of focus that has been a primary problem. “It’s like we’re thinking about Christmas,” he said. “‘What am I going to get for Christmas?’”

A few weeks back, Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky said his team looked like a junior club playing against an NHL team after losing to the Wild. Now Lemaire has played that card. Today, he said at times last night it appeared Wild players as a collective were “kids” on the ice making poor decisions.

Not a lot of time to grow up. St. Louis is back in town tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 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.