Phoenix Coyotes Hand 1-0 Loss to Minnesota Wild

In a reverse fortune of last week, the Minnesota Wild were on the short end of the stick this time with a 1-0 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes. Taylor Pyatt scored his 13th goal of the season in the 3rd period to secure the victory. Niklas Backstrom made 40 saves in the loss and Ilya Bryzgalov made 25 saves for the shutout. Phoenix was coming off what may have been its most disappointing loss of the season, a 6-0 home whacking against the Vancouver Canucks. With the loss, Minnesota dropped out of the top 8 in the Western Conference.

Minnesota Wild 3, Phoenix Coyotes 2

The Minnesota Wild defeated the Phoenix Coyotes by a score of 3-2 in Phoenix on Thursday night. Andrew Brunette scored 2 goals and Brent Burns got the other. The Minnesota Wild built up a 3-1 lead with Andrew Brunette's second goal of the game with 10 minutes left in the 3rd period. Niklas Backstrom made 33 saves for the Minnesota Wild. It was a much needed victory after the Minnesota Wild lost 7 of the last 8 games.

The Return of Pierre-Marc Bouchard

This just in: Pierre-Marc Bouchard is expected to PLAY tonight against the Phoenix Coyotes at the Xcel Energy Center. Bouchard has been out of hockey for the last 14 months. He has missed a total of 112 games. In 426 NHL games, Bouchard has recorded 77 goals and 190 assists. It seems like it's been lightyears ago when Pierre-Marc Bouchard last suited up for the Minnesota Wild. He is expected to play on the 4th line and see around 10 minutes. Hopefully it goes well and Bouchard can return to his old self. Welcome back Pierre-Marc Bouchard!

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!

Wild Scored and Won, Let’s do it Again.

Obviously the Minnesota Wild took my advice during the Wild Avalanche game in Denver last week. The Wild scored 3 goals and guess what? they won! Then they traveled to Vancouver to take on the Canucks and didn’t score at all and guess what? They lost. Wild Goalie Niklas Backstrom is doing his part, I would even venture so far as to saying the defense is doing their part, but I don’t think the Wild offense is aggressive enough and I blame a lot of it on the coaching. Come on Jacques, stop the dump and run plays and carry the puck all the way to the goal – it’s more intimidating, it’s more aggressive, it scores goals.

The Minnesota Wild are at home tonight vs the Phoenix Coyotes. Ticket King St Paul has Wild Tickets starting out at $49 each. That’s not bad. I will need to plan my funds carefully, though, because the Minnesota Wild play 10 of their next 12 game at the Xcel Energy Center and I want to make it out to as many as I can.


Go Wild!