I’ve got to make this quick. I cannot even explain to you how close I came to calling work tonight and saying, “Run AP.”

Yes, I’ve got what the team’s got. And it ain’t pleasant. I deserve sick pay for this one.

First of all, only in the NHL. Philly’s Josh Gratton got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for NOT fighting!

In the first period, Gratton goaded Big John Scott into dropping his gloves for a fight. Gratton then turtled so badly, he might lose his Broad Street Bully stripes. He turned and skated away. Instead of throwing just Scott into the box for unsportsmanlike conduct for dropping his gloves, referee Dave Jackson was aware of what Gratton did, as in, “You want to go?” so Jackson evened it up by throwing Gratton in, too.

Then later in the period, Erik Reitz and Arron Asham got unsportsmanlike’s for trying to fight during a TV timeout. The linesmen wouldn’t let them, so when they came out of the box, they did. I’d be surprised if Jacques Lemaire didn’t lose his cool with Reitz on that one. Up 1-0, all over the Flyers, the crowd out of it and Krys Kolanos sure looking like he was about to draw a holding penalty in the offensive zone. Not a good time to fight.

But, quite frankly, it didn’t matter. The Wild wouldn’t have scored on the power play anyway.

Tonight was a case where the Wild was skating too well. I mean it. The Wild was all over the Flyers in the first period and a good chunk of the second, so the Flyers kept taking penalties. That turned out to be the death of the Wild, which went 0 for 8 on the power play, taking just nine shots. It had the game’s first six power plays, including a 1:03 5-on-3 and it didn’t come close. Guys were swinging and missing or missing the net or shanking shots or overpassing.

It was ugly. Then, truly fitting, the Flyers needed just seven seconds of their only power play of the game for Mike Knuble to redirect a Mike Richards shot through Niklas Backstrom for the winning goal.

The Wild has scored the fewest goals in the NHL. It’s scored a paltry 27 goals in the last 16 games. The Wild just can’t score. It’s a tired story.

And when it’s power play goes south, tonight happens, because we all know the Wild can’t score 5-on-5.

This is why I keep saying I don’t believe the Wild can sustain it the rest of the season without the acquisition of a scorer.

As Jacques said, “Sometimes I’m wondering if they like to score.”

But it’s personnel, too. I know I keep picking on these guys, and I do think they’re going to be good players, but Benoit Pouliot is a power-play killer. And James Sheppard on a 5-on-3. Sorry, but he’s got no goals and two assists in the last 19 games.

But this is the personnel Lemaire’s got to work with. As Lemaire said this morning when we were asking about the personnel he’s been using on the power play: “What other choice do I have?”

Some extemporaneous stuff:  

The Houston coaching staff attended tonight’s game because the Aeros play in Hershey tomorrow. I can’t believe they’re tearing down the Spectrum this year. Even if Niklas Backstrom didn’t make the All-Star Game, his trip to Miami probably would have been cancelled anyway. The Flyers placed Backstrom’s pal Lasse Kukkonen on waivers today. If he goes to the minors, he won’t have an All-Star break at the same time as Backstrom. It’s always good to see my old pal Panotch, as we call him, who now works for Comcast after years covering the Flyers for Inquirer. The best thing about being in the rink tonight was I didn’t have to watch 15 of the same Braydon Coburn commercials on the NHL Network. Note to the NHL: Shoot another darn commercial.

OK, I’ve got to go. I am ill-stricken. Talk to you from Columbus, although if I feel the same I might bail on practice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 6:01 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.