Wild Playoff Hopes

I read this in Charley Walters column today:

The Wild held a team meeting this week and were reminded that they don't have a lot of time to make a playoff push.

Duh. You never know if Walters is telling the truth or just making a joke that’s why he is a "columnist" and not a reporter, but I hope that the Wild team managers and coaches are reminding the Wild players EVERY DAY that they have squandered away too many wins to sit back now, they need to win every game if they hope to make the NHL playoffs this year.

Good thing the Wild came out strong Tuesday night over the Maple Leafs. I wish every game looked like that.

Brunette Plays Hurt, Plays for the Team

Marian Gaborik could take a lesson or two from Andrew Brunette. Bruno played in back to back games with a banged up leg – notching two assists in the Chicago Blackhawks game and another assist during the depressing LA Kings game. In fact, he played over 19 minutes in the Kings game and looked like one of the best players on the Xcel ice.

"It's my worst fear," Andrew Brunette said after the Wild's 5-2 loss to the Kings. "It's that people will think I'm selfish. I've never been selfish. I'm not that way. I won't ever be that way.”

Those are words you will NEVER hear come out of Marian Gaboriks mouth. Now, who do you think is the true hockey player? Which player would you rather have on your team? Gaborik has got to go.

Minnesota Wild Rival

I saw this poll online – do you agree with the results?

Which team do you consider to be the Wild's biggest rival?
Vancouver: 60 %
Colorado: 14 %
Calgary: 11%
Dallas: 8 %
Anaheim: 7%

I was surprised that Vancouver received such a high percentage of the votes – I would have thought that Calgary would have received more votes and why isn’t Detroit on the list?

Anyway, there is a big game against Anaheim tomorrow night; perhaps Wild fans will consider the Ducks a bigger rival if they bounce us off the boards too much. The Wild Ducks games are always hard hitting. I am ready!

Wild score SIX goals and Win

The Xcel Energy Center crowd had plenty to cheer about last night. The Minnesota Wild finally got on a scoring streak! The Wild beat the Phoenix Coyotes at the “X” last night 6-3. The big difference between this win and many others was that the six goals came from six different players:

Marc-Andre Bergeron
James Sheppard
Owen Nolan
Andrew Brunette
Mikko Koivu
Cal Clutterbuck

That is a rare occurrence, but just proves that this team is capable of scoring a lot of goals every game because they have so many players that know how to score. This MN Wild Freak was starting to lose interest in the Wild and I think a lot of fans are cooling off toward the up and down Wild team, but the first Wild goal came just 46 seconds after the puck dropped – how’s that for winning back the fans? Minnesota fans want exciting hockey and we got it! Go Wild!

Backstrom Saves…Again

The four game road trip is starting out well. 2-0. The Wild had a great win over that Avs on Sunday 2-zip and then Niklas Backstrom had another great night between the pipes in Boston last night as the Wild shut out the Boston Bruins 1-0. It’s nice to see some scoring by other guys than just the norm – In Colorado it was Owen Nolan and in Boston it was Marek Zidlicky. It’s even nicer to have good old reliable Niklas Backstrom in the net to save our pucks.

I read online that this was the sixth straight win against an Eastern Conference team. Any chances we could get re-aligned in the East? Just kidding (or am I?). Next up are the Flyers tomorrow night. Let’s go Wild.