Coming to you from Calgary, where I talked this morning with Jacques Lemaire and Doug Risebrough (briefly because he had to catch the bus) about the state of the team.

Let me first tell you, this is going to be a very negative blog. And judging from some of your emails and sitting in the crowd last night, there’s a lot of angst in the “Wild fan” air. The “Team of 18,000″ is ticked off, so because of this, I ask you to read this at your own risk. If you can’t handle more negativity and already need to stay away from sharp objects, stop reading now.

I’ve consulted an attorney, and I am not legally responsible for squadoosh (legal term).

Josh Harding is in goal tonight. Playing in an arena that the Wild’s won once in since I’ve been covering the team, it’ll have to play with five defensemen tonight. Kim Johnsson returned to Minnesota today to deal with a family emergency.

John Scott missed his connection at Minneapolis to Calgary, so the Wild is shorthanded. Said Tom Lynn, “Between airlines dropping flights and holiday travel, there were no other options to get him here in time after that. Rest of Houston team was already en route from Chicago to Houston when we found out [Johnsson was going home], so it was too late to grab one of them. It was like a perfect storm of circumstances.”

I asked Lynn why the Wild is not carrying an extra defenseman: “We left last night with six healthy ones to play tonight, so that would not be unusual. When we go on a far road trip, with games bunched together, we are more likely to carry an extra guy as insurance.” 

Risebrough on not carrying an extra defenseman: “Sometimes this can happen in the first shift of the game, too. That’s the way it is.”

Risebrough on Johnsson: “It’s legitimate and it’s personal and he just has to try to resolve something. He’s personally OK.”

I talked to Risebrough about the state of the team, and he honestly doesn’t seem too concerned at least publicly. 

He said he told Lynn, who consults with the league schedule makers, “Next year make sure the first game after Christmas is on the road. It’s been like that three years.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Wild get trounced 8-3 in Dallas on the first game after Christmas last year? Didn’t the Wild play absolutely awful in Toronto and Detroit right after Christmas two years ago?

I asked Risebrough, “Yeah, but this has been a monthlong problem,” and he said, “You judge it more game to game than collectively. You want to look at each game and how we’re doing and I wrote last night’s game off as a game you should have on the road.”

Risebrough on whether he needs to “shake up” this roster with a trade: “I don’t see a lot of big options there. It’s obviously the manager’s job to search for those things, but at the end of the day, there’s no one thing that’s going to make things significantly better because of [certain] factors – some guys are hurt, we have some long-term objectives. That’s the way it is. Some guys we want to play so that they can get better by the game. Those players aren’t going to be gone. There’s no doubt you can look for changes, but I’m not sure that there’s a big significant change that’s going to make a significant difference. We just have to play better.”

I talked to Lemaire a lot about the state of the team, and also Mikko Koivu’s pointed quotes last night in Brian Stensaas’ story.

Most of Lemaire’s stuff will be in tomorrow’s newspaper, but he said it’s imperative the Wild starts playing more as a team because of the lack of “talent.”

Lemaire: “If we don’t play team game, we’ll win the odd game. How’s that?”

I asked is it because of a lack of talent and he said, “It’s because of a lot of things. Part of it is talent. Part of it. We’re better on defense. We’re not as good as last year on offense. That’s where the team is at now. We still lost 60 goals and Gaby’s not back, so that’s the reason why we have a hard time to score.

“You know, we score goals, but we’re among the worst teams in the league in goals for. And our goals, a lot of them were power play. I think it’s our worst year 5-on-5 so far. The good teams, everyone gets goals. As an example, getting Veilleux to 10 goals, get Sheppard to 15 goals, it’s not that big that they can’t achieve it. They haven’t start yet, but I know they can do this.”

Like I said, most Lemaire’s stuff will be in the paper, but he’s very concerned over this “critical” stretch. “Look at the teams we’re going to play – all teams we struggle against in the past. We have to play them all now one after the other. Who wouldn’t be [concerned]? But to give you hope, you have to play well. Even if you lose, you have to play well. We don’t play well right now.”

Look at who the Wild is playing, including Chicago, over seven-game stretch. The average opponent’s point percentage is .694. They play four division leaders plus the fourth-place team in each conference.

Team; GP; Possible Pts; Pts; Percentage   �
CHI     33      66      47      0.712121     �
CGY     35      70      44      0.628571     �
SJ      35      70      58      0.828571     �
DET     35      70      51      0.728571     �
COL     35      70      37      0.528571     �
BOS     36      72      58      0.805556     �
PHI     36      72      45      0.625�
Totals  245     490     340     0.693878   

More happy stuff?

The Wild’s five-game regulation road losing streak is tied for the second longest in team history. The Wild had one other single season five-game regulation road losing streak - 3/15-4/2/01 (the other 5-game streak spanned the 02-03 and 03-04 seasons). The franchise record is 7 games - 12/21/06-1/9/07.

The Wild’s 8 game winless streak against the Western Conference (0-7-1) is the second longest such streak in team history. The Wild was winless in 12 (0-6-4-2) versus the Western Conference from 3/6-4/4/01.

The Wild has allowed the game’s first goal in 10 straight games, a franchise record. The longest such streak in the NHL this season was Carolina, which allowed the first goal in 12 straight from 11/12-12/6.

The Wild had an optional skate this morning. Thirteen guys skated, including heavy-minute guys like Koivu, Burns, Miettinen and Zidlicky. The usual suspects low-minute guys also skated.

We’ll see if the Wild plays an optional game tonight. After all, it’s done so all month. 

What a gloomy blog, eh?�

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm 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.