Wild mount furious comeback against Oilers

Nearing the end of the second period with the team down 4-1 Saturday night, the fans at the Xcel Energy Center were so quiet that they could have heard a stick drop on the ice. Luckily for the fans, the Wild had other ideas about the remainder of the game. Wild Center Eric Belanger looked down the bench at his teammates and one thought popped into his mind: We can still win this game.

"We just knew, you know?" said Belanger after the game. "We just knew we were going to win this game."

It took the Wild nearly 10 minutes to get themselves back into the game after being down 4-1, but on this night, the Wild knew it was their game to take. With just over 2 minutes left in the second frame, Brian Rolston fired home a wrist shot to cut the Edmonton lead in half. Going into the locker room, the team felt as though it had a great chance to get themselves back into this game. Wild coach Jacques Lemaire was relieved the Wild were able to get a goal to close out the second period.

"Four to one would have been tougher than 4-2," Lemaire said. "The way we were playing, that's what we were hoping for, a goal at the end of the second."

It took the Wild less than 5 minutes into the third period to get them within a goal. Mark Parrish placed a perfect pass right to the stick of Marian Gaborik who shot it home past Edmonton goalie Dwayne Roloson just 4:44 into the third period. From there, the Wild just settled back and waited for their chances. After giving up double-digit shots in each of the first two periods, the Wild gave up only 6 in the third, limiting the Oilers scoring chances with much-improved defense from guys like Sean Hill and Petteri Nummelin. After spending most of the third period in the Edmonton zone, the Wild finally cashed in again to tie the game at 4 exactly 10 minutes after their third goal. Brent Burns took control of a Pierre-Marc Bouchard rebound and poked it home for his career-high 8th goal of the season. From there, the Wild tried to end the game before it got to overtime, but were unsuccessful. The Wild knew that they had the Oilers on the ropes, and they weren't about to let it slip away.

The Wild got started right away in overtime when Gaborik took the puck and split the defense on his way to the goal. Edmonton defensemen Steve Staios, realizing that there is no way they could catch up to Gaborik, did the smart thing and hooked Gaborik to give his team a chance to kill off a penalty. Unfortunately for the Oilers, the Wild were not going to let this game get away. The Wild quickly took control of the puck and moved it around the Edmonton zone. After about a minute of passing, Rolston found the puck and slid it over to Bouchard, who in turn flung the puck out to Nummelin who then took a wicked snap shot to send the Wild out with a bang. It was the first time in franchise history the Wild had come back from a 3 goal deficit in the Xcel Energy Center, and only the second time they had done it in any venue.



OK, so I wrote that trying to be fairly nice to the Wild when re-capping that game. The truth is though, it was a horrible game, aside from the fact that they won. I'll admit it was a hard-fought game and a great comeback, but the way the Wild played in the first two periods, there was no way they deserved to win that game. The Wild should be counting their lucky stars after this game in which they gave up two short-handed goals (which had never been done against the Wild), played absolutely awful defense, and only managed 7 shots on net in the second period. I refer to the Wild's defense as "absolutely awful" simply because I could not find any other words to express how dismal they really are. There is not one defensemen right now that is playing anywhere near where they need to be. Brent Burns is letting guys get behind him, Sean Hill is making terrible mistakes with the puck, and Martin Skoula...is Martin Skoula. I truly and honestly do not know why on earth Lemaire feels the need to put Skoula into the game. He can't hit, he can't block a shot, he can't stick-handle, and he can't skate. It's honestly like watching a guy that's been skating for maybe a couple months, and this guy is playing in the NHL, logging more than 20 minutes a game. Everybody on the defense needs to be more aggressive in order to cut down the opponents scoring chances. Now I'm not going to pretend like I know what is best for the team, I trust Lemaire and I trust the rest of the coaching staff, but after watching the Wild every year since their inception, I can tell what is and what isn't working with this team. When the puck is in the neutral zone and our defensemen is 10 feet away from the puck, and the opponents forward is 15 feet away from the puck, why would we let the other team take the puck and skate it into our zone? The idea just seems ludicrous to me, yet I see it every game. If we don't have our defense go after that puck, the other team is going to get it, do a little dance around our defensemen, and shoot and score. If we go after that puck, at the very least we can disrupt the play they are trying to set up and maybe get possession of the puck again. It seems so easy yet so hard when watching this club struggle. And yes, even with this recent comeback win, I am still calling the Wild a struggling team.

Mark Parrish is finally doing what he was brought in here to do last year: stay in front of the net, and don't move for any reason. We have four other guys that are there to back him up. If we can keep possession of the puck, Parrish has to be the one to stay in front of the net to screen the goalie, as well as be there to pick up any rebounds. And when Parrish isn't out on the ice, somebody else has to step-up and do the same thing. Aaron Voros, the one good constant on this team since he was called up, has been doing that, and it has paid off dearly for him. Voros, playing in only his 23rd game of the season last night, has recorded 7 goals and 6 assists this year. That's more goals than Pierre-Marc Bouchard who has 6 goals in 38 games this year. The Wild have so many things to work on if they want to become a top contender in this league. It is easy to see what makes a team dominant in today's NHL. Look at the Detroit Red Wings: The ultimate passing team that isn't afraid to get pushed around in front of the net. Their finesse style of play may not be able to be matched by the Wild, but there are plenty of aspects of the Red Wings game that the Wild can try to mimic and become a better team with. It's the same thing with the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks play a brand of hockey that virtually no one else can copy: They have the perfect mix of hard-nosed players to go along with skill players and they have one of the best goaltenders in the league. I'm not in favor of the Wild taking a page out of the Canucks dirty plays book, but there are definitely many parts of Vancouver's play that the Wild need to look at if they want to become a top contender in the West.

Again I bring up the point of the Wild not having their top center, Mikko Koivu. But the way they are struggling right now, offense is not my main worry. Eventually Koivu will make his way back into the lineup, lines will get shifted back to the way they were, and the scoring will come easier. It is the defense that worries me right now, and it is the defense that should be worrying the coaching staff of the Wild. The Wild have plenty of top-tier defenders in Brent Burns, Nick Schultz, and Petteri Nummelin, but none of them are playing up to their potential, or even anywhere near their potential. There are no trade possibilities for the Wild, nor do they have any solid defensive prospects down in Houston. That leaves the only option for the Wild on the guys that are carrying the load now. They need to be more aggressive when dealing with the puck, and they need to start taking more shots and getting the puck at the net. If they don't start doing that soon, they could very well fall out of the top 8 in the conference.

It's Wild on top of the Western Conference

It seems like just yesterday that the Minnesota Wild were playing mediocre hockey, not being able to complete a pass or score a goal. They bottomed out in San Jose, where they fell behind quickly and couldn't catch up. It was frustrating as a fan watching the Wild struggle so mightily when I knew they were capable of so much more. After that dismal showing in San Jose, the Wild had a few days to collect themselves before heading to Anaheim to face the Ducks. The Wild were desperate to get something going, and by the way they played that night, they were ready for it. The Wild swiftly broke out of their scoring slump and dropped 5 goals en route to a 5-2 win. With a new bounce in their step, the Wild finished their swing through California with a game in Los Angeles. Although the Wild couldn't stay hot with the goal scoring in LA, Josh Harding played stellar in goal to lead the Wild to a 2-1 win over the Kings. The Wild were cautious not to get ahead of themselves while on this short two game win streak, but they knew that they had to keep the confidence they had to be able to continue playing well.

The Wild headed home to take on the Nashville Predators on December 18th, three days after their close game in Los Angeles. The Wild, still in a bit of a scoring slump, knew that they needed to score early and often against Nashville to have a chance of winning. Unfortunately, it was the Preds that got going much sooner than the Wild had hoped. Jason Arnott scored for Nashville at the 8:50 mark of the first period to set the tone for the first 2 periods. The rest of the first period came and went quietly, but the Wild didn't play their best, putting them at risk for a defeat. The second period was a little better, yet the Predators again got on the scoreboard with the Wild missing out. The Wild went into the locker room a little disappointed; they had played a good two periods, yet Nashville was being rewarded with tip-in goals. After the way the first 40 minutes of the game went, it was fairly apparent the Wild were ready to break out, and break out they did: three goals in the third, the last one coming with just over a minute left, to propel the Wild to their 3rd win in a row.

Now riding high with a legitimate winning streak, the Wild faced the New York Rangers on Thursday night. The Rangers, although not particularly hot their last ten games (4-5-1), are always a team that can light the lamp on you. Luckily, the Wild had other ideas for this night. The Rangers got on the board first when Michal Rozsival found the back of the net just over 9 minutes into the game. Just 3 minutes after that goal, the Wild responded with one of their own. Gaborik scored the first of his FIVE (yes 5) goals on the night, beating Henrik Lundqvist with a wicked snap-shot after a beautiful pass from Pavol Demitra. Soon after Martin Skoula took an ugly tumble in the Wild zone (and by ugly I mean he looked like a first-time skater), Nigel Dawes scored for the Rangers to get them within striking distance. The Wild were quick to extinguish any hope for a New York comeback when Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored 3 minutes after to put the Wild again up by 2. The Wild finished the game with two more Gaborik goals to win the game 6-3. Although the Wild were again back on the winning track after a 4 game winning streak, that was put on the back-burner for a while. Thursday night belonged to Marian Gaborik and his historical 5 goals.

Gaborik's night was the first time in over 11 years that any NHL player had recorded 5 goals in a game, and the first time anybody had done it in Wild franchise history. Gaborik also assisted on Bouchard's goal, giving him 6 points on the night and making him the toast of Minnesota. So impressed were his teammates with his effort that two of them carried him off of the ice. Gaborik was definitely on all night; he was zipping up and down the ice like there was nothing to it and scoring so effortlessly that he could have easily recorded 6 or 7 goals on the night. After being stuck in a slump for a good six weeks, it was great to have a four game win-streak going and to have such an exciting game during the streak. Now the Wild are not-so-securely in second place in the conference, yet still in control of the standings. The Red Wings have a fairly comfortable lead in the West, but one decent slide by them can open up the door for the Wild to sneak into the number one slot in the conference. Tomorrow will be a good start on their quest to catch Detroit, since they face the Wings at the X. The Wings are obviously the superior team in the West, they have too much fire-power to go along with stellar defense and goal tending, but if the Wild can shut down their top line of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, they have a very good chance of winning the game.


Yet another big game coming up for the Vikings on Sunday as they take on the Washington Redskins at the Dome. With a Vikings win and a Saints loss, the Vikings guarantee themselves a playoff birth. It's been an interesting season for Minnesota fans, to say the least. When the Vikings stumbled out of the gate to a 2-5 start, the whole Vikings contingent of fans was hoping for a good draft pick for next year. Now that the team is 8-6 and looking very promising, it's once again exciting to watch this team. Adrian Peterson is still lighting up the field at will, and Tavaris Jackson has looked great the last 5 games or so. Now that they have something to play for, I find myself getting very into the games again. With the way they are playing recently, I can honestly say I believe that the Vikings could give the Cowboys or Packers a run for their money in the playoffs.

Another day, another blow-out

The Minnesota Wild are now officially slipping into the bottom echelon of the worst teams in the Western Conference. After hoping the Wild would be able to answer Jacques Lemaire's call and step-up their game Tuesday night, they instead played yet another terrible game where there was virtually no passing, defense, or scoring from Minnesota.

It didn't take the Sharks long to get the scoring going for them when Joe Pavelski scored a mere 2 minutes and 39 seconds into the game. The Wild played a decent rest of the first period, not surrendering any more goals and out-shooting the Sharks 10-8 in that period. Unfortunately, that was the end of any hope for the Wild. I have no idea what Lemaire said in between the first and second periods, but it looked like the Wild would have nothing of it. The Sharks came out shooting in the second period and ended up scoring a total of three times in 13 minutes to put the Wild completely out of reach, en route to a 4-1 win.

With the Wild's complete lack of hustle and aggressiveness, it's hard to say when the Wild might snap out of this funk. The can't score goals to save their lives, and they can't play defense to make up for the goal shortage. Two days ago, Jacques Lemaire called out his skill players to tell them they had to step up in a big way if the Wild were to be successful. I don't know if the players had Lemaire's words go in one ear and out the other, or if the simply cannot step up their game enough right now. Through 30 games this season, the Wild are sitting at 16-12-2, just barely good enough for 6th in the Western Conference. In those same 30 games, the so-called "skill" players such as Pavol Demitra, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, and Brian Rolston all have 20 points or less, with Demitra sitting at the bottom with a measly 14. Meanwhile our defense has combined for a +/- of -9, with the ever-disappointing Martin Skoula sitting at -8. Comparing that to a mediocre team like Anaheim whose defensemen are a combined +5, I think we can say the Wild's defense is a little less than stellar. Now I'll be the first to admit that the Wild are definitely hurting without Mikko Koivu. With Koivu out, that shuffles the whole lineup around, forcing Demitra to stray from his normal forward position into the center slot, thus pretty much killing any chance he has of scoring with the way Lemaire plays the center position (never stray past the opposing face off circles). But there is no reason that even without Koivu the Wild should be doing this bad. They have scored 2 goals or less in 4 games in a row, and 16 total games this year. I agree that when Koivu comes back they will score more, but unless they can get Niklas Backstrom his confidence back too, the Wild are stuck in the middle of the tight Western Conference.

From here, Minnesota's schedule does not get any easier. They face the Nashville Predators (11th in Western Conference), the New York Rangers (6th in the Eastern Conference), and the Detroit Red Wings (1st in the Western Conference) all in four days in the middle of December. I wish I had some ideas to throw out that I think would help the Wild, but unfortunately, I'm drawing a blank. The simply need to have every player step up like they were at the beginning of the season and play the game of hockey. The season is more than 1/3 gone, and I would hate to see the Wild keep sliding down the standings with the high expectations that they had going into the season.

The Wild's next game is on Friday night, where they will be facing the hated Anaheim Ducks. This would be a very important win, not only because it would put them back in the win column, but because Anaheim is a team that, after last years post-season, I would assume every Wild player would love to beat.

Be sure to check out the big black eye that will hit Major League Baseball tomorrow (Thursday) at 2:00 o'clock when the Mitchell Report comes out highlighting what George Mitchell found in his long investigation into steroids in Baseball.

My how the momentum has shifted...

It was a mere 4 weeks ago that the whole state of Minnesota was ragging on Brad Childress, praising Adrian Peterson, and thinking that the whole Minnesota Vikings season was going down the drain. That was following a 34-0 drubbing at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, and things were looking pretty bad. Since then, not only have the Vikings gone 4-0, they have beaten opponents by an average of more than 20 points per game. Now at this point the Vikings have their fans thinking playoffs, and if they keep playing the way they have been lately, they can definitely go pretty deep in the postseason.

The most recent game that the Vikings dominated was in San Francisco against the 49ers, where they easily handled the Alex Smith-less Niners 27-7. The Vikings defense was spectacular yet again with 2 interceptions and 3 fumble recoveries (unfortunately their defense wasn't enough to get the win for me in fantasy this week). The positive sign for this weeks game was the fact that AP was held in check, carrying 14 times for only 3 yards, but the Vikings used the second head of their two-headed monster to carry the load. Chester Taylor carried the ball 8 times for 101 yards and a touchdown, and Tavaris Jackson looked solid for the fourth consecutive week in a row with short, effective passes that moved the chains down the field.

The Vikings set the tempo of the game early on when big Kevin Williams picked off Trent Dilfer and returned it 18 yards to the house just 14 seconds into the game. From there on, the Vikings were in total control. The Vikings now control their own road to the playoffs. If they can defeat the Chicago Bears next week, the Washington Redskins in two weeks, and the Denver Broncos in the final week of the season, the will secure a playoff spot. Like I mentioned before, when (yes when, not if) the Vikings make the playoffs, if they can keep the motivation they have right now, they will be one dangerous team to face.

While the Vikings are tearing up the field, Minnesota Twins GM Bill Smith is holding strong in his efforts to get the maximum value for his Ace Johan Santana. While a lot of fans are clamoring for Santana to be traded soon so that the drama will go away, I applaud Smith for keeping his cool and not settling for anything less than the best. Now I, as much as the next die-hard Twins fan, would love to have the Twins sign Santana long-term, but I have come to terms with the fact that Carl Pohlad will not shell out the $100+ million that Santana is asking to keep him, so I'm OK with Smith being patient with this whole ordeal. I am still personally getting over the Hot-Stove week with all the different scenarios and trade rumors (that whole week consisted of sitting at the computer and refreshing every baseball-related web page waiting for the trade to happen). The Twins are definitely going be a different team next year, but I really do feel that they are getting better and better with every trade or little roster move. Bill Smith has already proven he knows what he is doing, and as anxious as I am to get this trade over and done with, I am happy that Smith has shown that he is as stubborn with this trade as Jacques Lemaire is when it comes to giving Martin Skoula ice time.

The Minnesota Wild are going back and forth again in the win-loss column, so let's hope they can extend their current winning streak of one (1) with a win tomorrow night against the San Jose Sharks. The Wild are in the middle of a pretty brutal road trip (Detroit, Columbus, San Jose, Anaheim, and Los Angeles), and if they were to get their season back on track, this would be a good trip to do so on. Mikko Koivu is still out with a broken bone in his leg stemming from the ridiculously illegal hit by Mattias Ohlund a few weeks ago. Until Koivu comes back, I fear the Wild may be hovering around mediocrity.

Let's take the C out of the BCS

I'm going to start out by apologizing to anyone that reads this, or may stumble across this, for my absence in recent weeks.

In the wake of the final week of the college football season, the BCS has obviously been a hot topic. After both the number one Missouri Tigers and the number two West Virginia Mountaineers lost, the college football polls were jumbled again. The BCS selection show yesterday pitted the LSU Tigers versus the Ohio State Buckeyes in the National Championship to be played January 7th, 2008. I, like many other people around the country, find the BCS to be something of a nuisance, something that should be eliminated from college football. As much as I personally do not want Ohio State in the National Championship, they are much more deserving than LSU. The Les Miles-led Tigers have two losses at the hands of Kentucky and Arkansas. Last time I checked, the regular season actually counted when it comes to deciding bowl games, but after seeing the matchups, it is easy to tell that the BCS has turned into something of a popularity contest. Hawaii, a team that went undefeated in the regular season, is left out of the National Championship in favor of a team that lost two (yes, two) regular season games.

So let's go over this "Hawaii has a soft schedule" argument. Sure, Hawaii may not have played many quality teams this season, but that is no fault of their own. It's not Hawaii that decides not to play good teams, it's the good teams that don't feel like travelling to Hawaii to give them some competition. Before this football season even started, the University of Michigan Wolverines were on the Warriors schedule, but eventually pulled out and switched that game with Appalachian State. That sure makes Michigan look tough. If people want to complain about the toughness of Hawaii's schedule, then go play them yourselves, otherwise keep quiet.

Sure one can make the argument that LSU is the better team, but since when do we award teams for not living up to their expectations? LSU wasn't supposed to lose to Kentucky, much less Arkansas, yet Hawaii EXCEEDS expectations by running the table and gets the shaft. And as Adam Rank of AOL Fanhouse points out, if this was about putting the best teams in the Championship, USC should be there over LSU. Needless to say, there are many problems with the way that bowl games are decided.

Can you say Playoff system?

Feel free to leave comments on what you think of the B(C)S.