Saturday update: Danny Irmen and Robbie Earl cleared waivers but as of now remain on the Minnesota roster. 

It’s 10:56 at night, and the Blackhawks are on their way to the airport for their flight to Zurich. I am envious. They’re due in at 2:45 p.m. local time Saturday, and have practice scheduled for 5:30 p.m. They’ll play an exhibition game, then open the regular season with two games against the storied Florida Panthers.

Well, maybe not storied. But I used to write a lot of stories about ‘em.

Onto tonight. If you glanced at my live blog tonight, you probably are aware the Wild showed the best signs of mastering Todd Richards’ system in a well-played first period. And then the Wild came out for the second period, and played its worst period of the preseason. The way Richards saw it, the Wild took unnecessary risks, got too cute (especially the defensemen) and spent the entire period in its own end.

The Wild barely sniffed the offensive zone in the second. Ironically, after its only two good shifts of the period, the team gave up the go-ahead goal on the ensuing shift. But Marty Havlat, playing in Chicago for the first time since leaving as a free agent, scored the tying goal when his wrister deflected off Duncan Keith’s stick and in.

The Havlat goal was nothing compared to a series of great plays Havlat made en route to James Sheppard’s first goal. I don’t want to take anything away from Sheppard because it was a great goal by him. But Havlat made a perfect dump for Antti Miettinen, and then was awesome behind the net to set up Sheppard. Shep by the way won 9 of 16 draws after winning 9 of 14 against St. Louis. Maybe the tutoring with “Cowboy” is working.

The Wild played an OK third, and wound up succombing.

Richards said he’s using St. Louis and Chicago as a measuring stick, and the Wild has a lot of work to do. He wants the Wild to take a page out of the Blackhawks’ book. Chicago’s forwards pursue the puck relentlessly, Richards said, while the Wild continues to have one forward go and two hang back — a staple of yesteryear, he says.

He said he will work on this bigtime the next three days before Tuesday’s preseason finale in Philadelphia, a game in which the Wild hopes to have a lot of injured guys back, including Mikko Koivu and maybe Andrew Brunette.

Proving the Michael Russo jinx yet again, I did a Kim Johnsson feature for Saturday’s paper, and he left the third period early tonight with what looked like the same contagious leg problem the others have. Richards thought it wasn’t serious — just a product of Johnsson playing back-to-back for the first time. So maybe it was a cramp and not a groiner.

Rosters have to be set by 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The final cuts will be interesting. The Wild is $797,000 from the $56.8 million cap with 24 players, one more than they’re allowed. But Derek Boogaard probably starts the season on IR to get to 23, but that doesn’t solve the cap problems.

So…

Do you send Craig Weller to the minors? I think that’s a possibility. He’d still make his 600K in the minors, but that comes off the cap. Do you send Colton Gillies to the minors? I’ve liked his camp, but that $1 million-plus cap hit could make him a casualty, plus the fact if you send him down to develop some more, he’d get big minutes and responsibilities in Houston — something that won’t happen here.

That could create two spots. Do they sign Andy Hilbert for 500ish, an experienced NHLer who had a couple hiccups tonight but absolutely worked his tail off? Do they put John Scott at wing (where he didn’t look comfortable tonight) and keep Jaime Sifers? Or do they send Scott down and keep Sifers?

I just have this feeling Sifers stays. His cap hit is only $650,000 and he would be a waiver risk. Scott playing forward has as much if not more with Sifers than Boogaard’s injuries. Chuck Fletcher said it gives John Scott “options.”

It should be an interesting couple days because cuts are coming. So far Nathan Smith is still here, and he’s got some NHL experience. Danny Irmen and Robbie Earl are on waivers, so they could be goners. Matt Kassian didn’t make the trip, which might say something, and he doesn’t require waivers to send him down. I’d assume Marco Scandella’s got a flight to Quebec on the horizon. But he should be a good one.

Also, Fletcher’s making calls again asking other GM’s, OK, camp’s almost over, what do you need, what do you have to give up?

OK, talk to you after practice Saturday. I’ll also post a Johnsson Extra on Saturday — unless I ended his season with that article.

UPDATE: 11:30 pm update. Just informed Richards will give team a day off Saturday, so I’ll update blog sometime in the afternoon or if there’s news.

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