Good morning from an ice-cold, unoccupied press box inside the pretty much empty Xcel Energy Center.

If you didn’t see, I wrote a Brent Burns piece in today’s paper, which can be read here.  The most interesting part of the story is the middle where Doug Risebrough admits he’s at least considered trading a defenseman for a forward.

By process of elimination, you can pretty accurately guess the only defensemen he could really only trade are Kim Johnsson, Marek Zidlicky and Marc-Andre Bergeron.

Kurtis Foster is untradeable because he’s not playing, Erik Reitz wouldn’t get you much, Brent Burns is untouchable, Nick Schultz has an unwritten a two-year no-trade moratorium and Martin Skoula isn’t quite as valued elsewhere as he is here (despite the fact he’s having a solid season). One of you blog posters had a great line the other day: “Ripping Skoula is soooooo last year.” (or something like that).

Bergeron’s in the last year of his deal and you can bet this would be the preferred player to be dealt to get somebody. But Johnsson and Zidlicky have two more years left only, and with the cap nowadays, there’s a good chance the Wild will only be able to re-sign one of the two next year. Johnsson currently makes $4.85 million a year, Zidlicky $3.5 million.

So they’re always possibilities, although I can’t imagine trading Johnsson or Zidlicky right now. Johnsson’s invaluable with his puck-moving, and Zidlicky, although his defense is erratic and his footwork causes him to take bad minors, his offense is like few blue-liners in the NHL. But again, eventually, maybe next year, it’s a definite possibility one gets traded because they won’t be able to pay both under cap constraints most likely.

Personally, I think the Wild will get its forward if it’s able to eventually trade Marian Gaborik. Of course, he’s got to be healthy and playing well to do that.

On Bergeron, Jacques Lemaire took a bit of a silent shot at him today. He was asked about Pavol Demitra’s game against the Wild last time Vancouver was in town. Lemaire said points always make you look good, and then added unsolicited, like Bergeron’s two assists last game and how he was named “first star” (he was really second, I just looked on the box score).

Lemaire said then “OK, OK, OK?” The point being, Lemaire didn’t like Bergeron’s game against St. Louis, and at further look, Bergeron only played 13:33, which is a tell-tale sign he didn’t like Bergeron’s game.

The Wild will go with the same lineup as St. Louis. Craig Weller and Colton Gillies are scratched, and Nik Backstrom is starting, meaning Josh Harding will likely get a second consecutive Saturday start tomorrow in Nashville.

 The Canucks, after playing last night in Detroit, have an optional this morning with only five skaters.

Curtis Sanford was yanked last night. Rookie Cory Schneider will be looking for his first NHL win tonight. He’s 0-2 with a 3.24 goals against average and .889 save percentage.

I ran into my pal Darcy Hordichuk on his way out and my way upstairs. He has a broken foot but is playing tonight.

Funny sight. I was just running out of the arena to get a coffee, and the Sedin Twins were in the lobby watching a TV enthralled by the OJ Simpson sentencing. I would have talked to them, but I couldn’t figure out which was the playmaker and which was the scorer.

By the way, also, then Kevin Bieksa walked out holding two autographed jerseys from Canucks fan and Twins first baseman Justin Morneau.

Then I ran into Scott Mellanby, the former great Panthers captain, on the way back in. He works for the Canucks now. I actually ran into him in the airport in training camp. I’m full of useless info today.

Not much else going on. I’ll weigh in on the Sean Avery ruling (six-game suspension and anger management) in my Sunday column. I can’t imagine Dallas will take him back.

NHL Network’s following Schultz around for a “Day in the Life” episode. He was taking lots of jabs from teammates about how boring the show’s going to be. Kurtis Foster said it’ll be a lot of him cleaning

Poor Schultzie.

I have a big Sunday piece coming, too, on a topic you’ll be very interested in reading.

OK, better get to work.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Pregame skate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.