Huge, colossal difference of opinion between the players and coach Jacques Lemaire on the performance in tonight’s game.

The players said they were skating well, had lots of chances and just were snakebit again. The coach said the Wild had little energy, no legs and “nothing” when it came to scoring chances.

Quite frankly, I agree with the coach. Other than Marek Zidlicky’s meaningless power-play goal with 48 seconds left, the Wild’s lone goal by Antti Miettinen can’t even be considered a scoring chance. Steve Mason just lost sight of the puck, and Miettinen’s 60-foot floater found its way through traffic for the tying goal in the first.

But for the second game in a row, the Wild carried a 1-1 tie into the third period and then collapsed.

Columbus has a ton of future upper-echelon talent, and tonight the Wild was done in by an 18-year-old 175-pounder riding high after a spectacular world junior championships in which he dominated for Russia. Nikita Filatov registered the Blue Jackets’ first-ever rookie hat trick in just his sixth NHL game.

He just needed 9 minutes, 59 seconds of ice time to outscore the NHL’s worst, most inefficient offensive team.

Jakub Voracek, 19, had assisted on all of Filatov’s goals.

A 2-on-1 Derek Dorsett, 21, goal after a neutral zone turnover started the three-goal third period explosion.

“That’s probably one of the things that makes it tougher on us, When we get scored on, because we know we’re struggling scoring goals. It just gets in your head,” Eric Belanger said.

As I’ve said often, because the Wild has no prayer of scoring more than a couple goals per game, it has to play the perfect game every single night. There is no margin for error, which is why I truly believe it’s doomed this second half unless GM Doug Risebrough swoops in. But his hands are hamstrung. The Wild only has about $1.8 million worth of cap room. 

The difference of talent on the ice tonight was startling (because Columbus has gotten to pick high every year), while the Wild’s lone top-five pick on the ice, Benoit Pouliot, couldn’t even skate with the puck tonight without losing it. It was astonishing how many times the puck just came off his stick or he was bumped from the puck.

To be fair, Jacques said Pouliot wasn’t alone, saying he didn’t know what to do with six guys, singling out Krys Kolanos.

But read Jacques’ damning quotes in the paper on the difference between skill on the ice tonight. And remember, the Jackets had seven regulars out, including All-Star Rick Nash.

The Wild did have some bad breaks. I thought Cal Clutterbuck was hit from behind early in the third by Mike Commodore. No call, and soon after, the Columbus onslaught began. Clutterbuck didn’t play the rest of the game after having trouble seeing out of his right eye, but he says he’s OK.

Scary incident for Pierre-Marc Bouchard in the second. A Manny Malhotra dump into the zone hit Bouchard flush in the throat. He had trouble breathing and raced to the bench in a bit of a panic. But he recovered from the scary, scary incident and returned. After the game, he had a red mark of the entire puck on his neck.

Derek Boogaard did skate this morning as you can see on the blog post below. Nik Backstrom says he’ll be OK for the homestand after whatever slight injury he has. Like I wrote in the blog below, he practiced today and backed up tonight.

Josh Harding fell on the knife after the game for tonight’s game. Still, the Wild’s scored eight goals for him in his six losses.

Also, if you didn’t see the Craig Weller-Jared Boll fight, go to YouTube. That was one amazing bout with Weller just pounding him right from the first instant. But Boll hung in there and got in a few licks himself.

The Wild is back down to 10th in the West after this 2-2 road trip. It brought in the midway point at 20-18-3 and 43 points — five fewer than last year. This is going to be a tough second half folks.

There’s just not enough scoring on this roster to last.

The midseason analysis can be read right here: Survival mode.

My Sunday column on Doug Risebrough veering away from his message two years ago can be read here. 

Again, as I pointed out a few weeks ago, I think guys like James Sheppard and Colton Gillies are going to be solid players. But it was Risebrough himself who said a few years ago that the organization reached a point where kids would no longer just be given jobs. Now three are playing at once, and they haven’t been productive, which is affecting at least the future of this season.

Again, and I can’t stress this enough. Gillies is 19. Sheppard is 20. They’re going to be fine long-term. You can see flashes of the strong players they’ll be. Remember, Mikko Koivu needed time to develop into the player he is today at age 25 (and he’s still developing).

Here are some individual and team stats for the first half (through the Flyers game.

Below are other stats that couldn’t fit into the paper. These are BEFORE tonight’s game.

Goaltending stats

Games: Niklas Backstrom 34, Josh Harding 8

Wins: Backstrom 19, Harding 1

Shots against: Backstrom 992, Harding 216

Saves: Backstrom 920, Harding 202

Goals allowed: Backstrom 72, Harding 14

Goals against average: Harding 2.00, Backstrom 2.17

Save percentage: Harding .935, Backstrom .927

Shutouts: Backstrom 5

Minutes: Backstrom 1,992; Harding 418

Unique stat team leaders

Hits: Cal Clutterbuck 137, Reitz 58, Veilleux 44

Missed net w/ shot: Burns 58, Miettinen 38, Belanger 35

Blocked shots: Nick Schultz 77, Martin Skoula 64, Johnsson 63

Go-ahead goals: Koivu and Pierre-Marc Bouchard 5, Nolan and Veilleux 4

Points vs. division: Koivu 8

Points vs. outside division: Koivu 29, Miettinen 22

Points at home: Koivu 22, Burns and Belanger 13

Points on the road: Koivu 15, Miettinen 14, Brunette 11

Shootout goals: Zidlicky and Miettinen 2

Fights: Boogaard 7, Craig Weller 5 and Reitz 5

Minor penalties: Zidlicky 16, Koivu and Burns 12

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 6:04 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.