Skoula sits, Wild win...Coincidence? I think not

After a disappointing loss at the hands of the San Jose Sharks a few nights ago, the Wild were looking for a way to bounce back in to the win column. They found that way in the form of quick scoring and solid defense against a good Dallas Stars team. After failing to keep the momentum against the Sharks, the Wild jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and never looked back, en route to a convincing 6-3 win versus the Stars.

Marian Gaborik had two goals, and Brent Burns added three assists to propel the Wild to a win over a Dallas team that demolished them two weeks ago with an 8-3 defeat. The Wild got into some trouble early when Brent Burns was called for interference just 3:44 into the game. The Wild were able to stifle the Dallas powerplay, which had been connecting on 20.5 percent of their chances this year, before Brian Rolston took a penalty at the 8 minute mark of the first, this one also for interference. Looking at the prospect of giving up the first goal of a game for the sixth time in a row, the Wild responded in a big way when Pavol Demitra flipped the puck out of the neutral zone to a streaking Gaborik who caught Marty Turco committing early. Gaborik backhanded the puck over a sprawled out Turco to put the Wild up 1-0 with only the second short-handed goal for the Wild this year. Less than two minutes after the Wild scored first, Demitra cashed in with a goal of his own when he wristed a shot past Turco and into the back of the net. It took the Wild just another two minutes to score yet again, this time it was Pierre-Marc Bouchard who joined the scoring frenzy to put the Wild up by 3 goals in the first period. That third goal by the Wild was enough for Stars coach Dave Tippet to pull the plug on Turco and replace him with backup Mike Smith. The Stars would answer back with a goal of their own only a minute after the Wild, but Gaborik extended the lead again with another goal with just 1:30 left in the first.

The second period started off fairly even as the Wild and Stars traded shots before the Wild finally scored again with a goal from Eric Belanger. Belanger received a beautiful pass from Gaborik and Belanger, using the perfect screen Aaron Voros was setting up, rifled the puck past Smith to put the Wild at a comfortable 5-1 lead. The Stars would respond with two consecutive goals in the second period to get the game to 5-3, but that's as close as they would get. Mark Parrish nailed the coffin shut with a goal with less than 4 minutes left and the Wild came away with a 6-3 victory.

The most notable aspect of the game was the absence of Martin Skoula at the blue-line. After a series of articles written in the local paper about Skoula the last few days, Jacques Lemaire may have been feeling a little bit of pressure to sit Skoula to see what happens. The Wild fans have been clamoring for Skoula, who has now sat a total of 2 games while in a Wild uniform, to be benched in favor of a better defensemen such as Keith Carney or Kurtis Foster. Tonight, Carney was the lucky recipient of the ice time and he proved that he still has some game (at least more game than Skoula). Lemaire has shown an infinite amount of confidence in his seasoned blue-liner, but what he sees in Skoula is something that pretty much everybody in the State of Hockey is missing. Lemaire says that Skoula uses his big size to his advantage, yet the last time I saw him intimidate a player with his size was...I can't even remember. Guys skate right around Skoula and usually that leads to a goal. I do not believe it is coincidence that the defense was good tonight with the absence of Skoula; I feel the blue-line is much safer without him there. I don't know what stat Lemaire is looking at, but what I look for in a defensemen is his +/- ratio. A player gets a + if he is on the ice when his own team scores; a player receives a - if he is on the ice when the opposing team scores. Let's take a look at the defensemen on the Wild and compare that stat:

Brent Burns: +2
Kim Johnsson: -6
Kurtis Foster:-4
Petteri Nummelin:+2
Nick Schultz:-3
Keith Carney:+7
Sean Hill:-4
Martin Skoula:-13

That stat is pretty telling. Generally when a coach plays a guy that is terrible on either side of the puck, it means he adds some sort of threat on the other side. When Skoula plays, he is at the very least a liability on defense and he adds absolutely no scoring threat whatsoever. What Lemaire sees in him, I have no idea. Carney on the other hand, a seasoned veteran who is a career +163, sits pretty much every game. And even though Foster is a -4, he adds a scoring threat that is pretty much unmatched by any of our other defensemen (minus Brent Burns), yet he's been a constant healthy scratch. I am glad to see that Lemaire, whether he took the articles and the fans reaction to heart or not, finally did what every Minnesota Wild fan was looking for: giving Skoula the heave-ho. Now the only thing that would make it better would be for Doug Risebrough, the Wild General Manager, to let Skoula go for good.

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.