The economy has me in the blues lately – I wonder how long before the NHL in Minnesota is impacted. I don’t have my season ticket this year (which is one of the reasons for the lack of posts here) and other NHL markets are seriously tanking, but hopefully it won’t spread too much before things improve.

On a happier note, both the Wild and the Gophers are playing good, entertaining hockey. Missed last night’s rare national game in HD, but it sounded good on the radio.

I still plan to add a new feature here soon, but to be honest, there are so many good hockey writers and bloggers out there now that I feel like I should only write when I have something unique to say and not just re-hash what is already out there.

Since new media revenue is starting to evaporate along with everything else, at least I don’t have any sponsors I need to worry about…

Finally got to watch my first regular season game in person this year. I didn’t buy the single season ticket next to my relatives seats this year, so unless Bill Robertson comes through for me (or any of the channel 45 connections), I’ll only get to about five games at the X this season.

My bullet points from tonight’s outing:

• The Wild were extremely fortunate to be where they were after two periods.
• I don’t buy the consecutive sell-out streak any more and wish they would just announce the true attendance.
• There are now two wireless networks in the building and both are password protected (MSE_Public and MSE_Media). Really hate that – AT&T is your wireless sponsor, right? Make them pay extra so we can have free wireless in the stands…
• Speaking of sponsors, the ads are getting to be a little much, in my opinion. I guess I should just get up and walk around more between periods and it wouldn’t seem so bad. I think the Best Buy ads for “all your HD hockey needs” pushed me over the edge, seeing as how there are what, five HD games on this year? And this was one of them…
• Programs are still $3 this year, with proceeds still going to youth hockey.
• They played the cool Andrew Brunette video with him and the equipment trainer, then said they were auctioning off the prop “17,615″ jersey. Nicely done.
• Some photographer dude came by our section before the third period taking pictures of people and giving them cards to look up the shots and order prints (just like at amusement parks!). http://www.wild.com/truefans
• “Mittens” is the worst hockey nickname ever and I refuse to use it.
• Why does the URL for Russo’s Rants keep changing? Same for the wild.com in-game commentary…

I have a few enhancements planned for this site that I hope to have online very soon – stay tuned!

Lame:

New autograph policy: A total of 150 autograph tickets will be distributed for Andrew Brunette and another 150 for Marian Gaborik. Those tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 2 p.m.

Now you get to wait in line twice in one day…

Screw the Slovak Mafia – Mikko to Antti all season, baby! Maybe we should have half the team be sick every night, eh? Or ask to play Eastern teams all year…

It just seems so right to have Bruno back in a Wild jersey, no?

Fun season opener tonight. Didn’t get to see it in person, but watched the beginning at Joe Senser’s in Eagan before heading home to see the end.

By the way, how long before all games are in HD? There should be a law…

Nice to finally be back! After a laptop issue that took a long time to resolve, too much stuff going on at work and my general disdain for pre-season professional sports, it’s been hard for me to get excited about hockey this year. That changed after back-to-back games this week at the X, though.

I took one kid each night and got more and more excited as each period passed. Thoughts from the past two days:

• Price increases all around it seems: tickets and most concessions – waiting to see if regular season game programs go to $4 too
• Buffalo Wild Wings appears to be MIA on the first floor (chicken strips with sauces now)
• Bergeron really, really needs to stop fighting (or attend Boogie’s fight camp)
• As if we needed a new reason to hate Skoula – watch that stick, buddy!
• Will Sheppard join Koivu this year as a face-off master? Initial signs are good…
• Took a bunch of pre-game pictures that I’ll get uploaded later this week

One final thought tonight. A lot of season ticket holders for pro hockey and football hate the pre-season because they are not “real” games, yet cost full-price. I think the NFL is considering a shortened pre-season, but I like what baseball does: cheap games in unique locations that people actually plan trips around. How about NHL scrimmages at college rinks for $5 or $10 a head? The teams make too much money under the current setup to change, but wouldn’t it be cool to have the local rink rats get to see their heroes in their own backyard?

Tonight we attended the first annual Wild season ticket holder BBQ on Raspberry Island in downtown St. Paul. Two trolleys ferried people from the River Centre parking ramp on Kellogg down to the entrance where we found:

• Coupons for a free brat or burger, chips, drink and Kemps IttiBitz ice cream
• A tent selling discounted Wild merchandise
• New owner Craig Leopold flipping burgers
• Tables with swag from channel 45 and the Pioneer Press
• Two caricature artists doing free drawings
• Lots of tables and chairs to sit and eat
• A stage for a live Hockey Unplugged with Kevin Falness, Dan Terhaar, Mike Greenlay and Craig Leopold
• A screen set up for the movie Miracle

I chatted briefly with Mike Greenlay (who plays in the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am) and asked him about the new owner. He said he worked with him before in Nashville and he thinks that Bob Naegele found a great successor in Mr. Leopold.

It was fun listening to Hockey Unplugged again, although a few of the questions asked weren’t the greatest (glad I don’t have to come up with answers for those).

The only disappointment of the night was the one caricature artist who said he had to quit at 8PM – right as my daughter got to the front of the line after waiting an hour. By itself that wouldn’t be so awful, but the guy did one more drawing after we left for a couple who offered him $10 to do a “free” drawing. Jerk.

I was looking at my personal blog today and remembered I met Mark Parrish at the 2006 Minnesota State Fair (post here).

He was a nice guy to talk to and I remember he asked me what “DK” stood for and always liked to hear stories about how people got their nicknames.

I understand the cap explanation and the player-coach tension, but I’m sorry to see him go. We still have a need for junk goals from in front of the crease and that was a Parrish specialty. His off year was in large part due to the injuries suffered by getting in there and battling. It’s hard for me to not see how you at least give him a chance with the new teammates–especially with the contract he had.

By the way, where do I sign up for one of those deals? Five million to not do anything is pretty sweet…

Good luck Grumpy, wherever you end up.

As reported by hockey writer extraordinaire Mike Russo, the Wild are almost at the salary cap after signing Pierre-Marc Bouchard last week to a long-term, $20.4 million deal.

He also posted an updated depth chart to his blog and I have to say, I’m pretty excited about the upcoming season:

LW – Brunette, Parrish, Veilleux, Boogaard
C – Koivu, Sheppard, Belanger, Pouliot
RW – Gaborik, Bouchard, Nolan, Miettinen, Weller
D – Burns, Johnsson, Schultz, Zidlicky, Skoula, Bergeron, Reitz, Foster
G – Backstrom, Harding

Of course there are no guarantees, but there seem to be plenty of worse teams in the NHL (at least on paper). Only 58 days to the pre-season opener…

Go Wild!

The Wild released next season’s schedule yesterday (PDF). Some thoughts:

• Sixteen back-to-backs (can’t remember how many there were last year)
• Longest road series: six games, 2/27 – 3/8, CGY/EDM/VAN/SJ/LA/ANA
• Longest home series: five games, 11/20 – 11/28, VAN/STL/WSH/DAL/TB
• Both Wings home games are on Saturday nights (1/3 & 2/21)
• Crosby @ PIT on 11/18 and Ovechkin here on 11/24
• Hopefully a healthy Manny in nets for the home opener vs. BOS (10/11)

Can’t wait!

We attended the 2008 edition of the Minnesota Wild season ticket holder select-a-seat event at the Xcel Energy Center earlier this week.

The good news for the new owner: very few open seats this year. The upper ends were sold out (as usual) and the upper sides had only scattered single seats available. The club level had surprisingly few open seats (so much for the recession) and the only reasonable supply of seats were lower level ends and corners on the side the Wild shoot at once.

Some other notes:

• The prospects were on the ice when we first arrived and were supposed to come up and sign autographs, but they still weren’t there by the time we left.
• Suite #56 was open for inspection, which was fun to see, but I was disappointed to see that they removed the 23-inch Cinema displays, though.
• While sitting in some seats on the club level, a very nervous gentleman purchased four of them ($12,300 – ouch).
• Free ice cream and Zamboni pictures were nice, as were the 30-percent-off coupons to the Hockey Lodge.
• My relatives kept their same seats, so I’ll wait and see if the Wild offer them the open single next to them for half price again.
• The “discount” at the River Centre parking ramp wasn’t so special – $7 instead of $10. How about free for the people spending thousands of dollars?

More on the prospects soon…

Wow, take a week off to watch the best female golfers in the world and the Wild universe goes nuts…

Some thoughts on those who have left:

• Rolston – sad to see him go, but he occasionally drove me nuts. No way the Wild could have matched the New Jersey offer (which I thought was very generous).
• Fedoruk – will miss his grinder line determination (and dance skills).
• Voros – Fedoruk lite, but his production dropped off and wasn’t worth $1 million/year.

And some thoughts on the additions:

• Andrew Brunette (LW) – glad to have him back. Maybe he can help Parrish get out of his slump.
• Owen Nolan (LW) – didn’t see this one coming. Anything that makes Calgary weaker is good in my book. Sort of a Walz replacement in some ways.
• Antti Miettinen (RW) – should be good for Koivu to have another Finn in the room. Stats look pretty good.
• Craig Weller (RW) – UMD connection, but not much NHL experience. Supposed to be a Voros replacement. Never thought $600K would be considered a “value” player…
• Marek Zidlicky (D) – Excited about this one. New owner must know him, we get a player whose name starts with “Z,” another Czech will maybe encourage Skoula to play better (ha!). Sort of pricey, but not Johnsson pricey.

And finally, issues we still need to deal with:

• Butch and Veilleux – I’d like to see both back, unless one of them helps us with:
• Another Center – as discussed everywhere, we are still lacking here.

All that and Select-A-Seat this week too…

Watched a bit of the Versus coverage of the first round. Here is the wild.com summary:

ROUND 1 – Tyler Cuma

The skinny: The Wild entered the draft at No. 24 overall, but moved up one spot to No. 23 in the first round to select the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Bowmanville, Ontario native.

ROUND 2- Marco Scandella

The skinny: Ranked No. 82 among North American skaters, Minnesota selected the Val d’Or defenseman with its No. 55 overall pick.

ROUND 4 – Sean Lorenz

The skinny: After skipping a round thanks to its acquisition of Marc-Andre Bereron from Anaheim, the Wild selected defenseman Sean Lorenz out of USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program with its fourth round pick.

ROUND 5 – Eero Elo

The skinny: Tommy Thompson saw Elo in Finland and, though the left winger was unranked by Central Scouting, Minnesota took him with the No. 145 overall selection.

I’m hoping Cuma becomes another Burns and the other picks obviously focused on building up the future blue line. The Versus commentators were high on Cuma and thought he should have been picked earlier, so that’s a good sign.

Sad to see Jokinen go to Phoenix and I’m discouraged by the Rolston negotiations. The Wild still have a mountain of issues to deal with this summer – next date to watch being the July 1st UFA deadline. I just hope we have a clearer picture before Select-A-Seat and the associated personal financial decision that entails…

Branko Radivojevic heads to Russia and the Wild sign Marc-Andre Bergeron on D. Got a little behind on posting here after being on the road for a week, but I wanted to throw these two changes up. Also looks like Rolston and Gabby might be close to re-signing too (I love how Shooter is getting mileage out of Rolston’s house on StoneRidge being up for sale).

A little sad to see Radio leave, although there are tons of role players that can step in. He really wasn’t much to write home about, but did step it up a little at the end of the season and always seemed to show a lot of effort (even if he couldn’t hit open nets).

As for Bergeron, I’m a little concerned about Russo’s comments that he’s error-prone and has low self-esteem. He was on the golf course when he was traded, though, so he’s got that going for him. The Wild don’t need a Skoula-lite, but if he turns into a Foster-lite instead, that’s not a bad thing.

Trade week coming up (with Select-A-Seat coming soon too), so keep your eyes and ears open for Wild news…

The Minnesota Wild announced yesterday that they have signed former Houston Aeros defenseman Maxim Noreau (max-EEM nohr-OH) to a multi-year deal. The 5-foot-11, 192-pound, twenty-year-old native of Montreal played 50 games for Houston last year and had 16 points (8 goals and 8 assists).

The story was posted on the Wild site, the Aeros site and the NHL news feed, but so far there has been no local commentary by Russo at the Strib or at the Pioneer Press (both used short AP stories).

I don’t really remember hearing much about him last year from the Aeros community, so I’m curious to see if he will actually make the big team. As usual for the Wild, terms were not disclosed.

The big three Wild players participating in the 2008 IIHF World Championship in Canada did us proud. Brent Burns (Canada), Mikko Koivu (Finland) and Niklas Backstrom (Finland) all had stellar tournaments.

Burnsie was named Best Defenseman of the tournament, scoring 3 goals with 6 assists and a tournament best +14. His nine points tied him for third highest defenseman (along with my favorite LA King – Vote for Lubo!).

Looking at the Finns, Mikko Koivu got to play on a line with his big brother Saku and, like Burns, had 9 points (4 goals and 5 assists). His face-off win percentage was almost 60%, about 3% lower than his brother.

Wild goaltender Niklas Backstrom earned a shut-out in the bronze medal game against Sweden and had a 92.2% save percentage and a 2.11 goals against average for the tournament. He also played by far the most minutes of any goalie in the championship – 483:22.

Former Wild player Mattias Weinhandl also had a great tournament. The wiener was a +9 for Sweden, with 13 points (5 goals and 8 assists). Looks like he’s headed for Russia next year too.

Most importantly, no one seems to have been hurt. The future looks good for the Wild…

Mr. Simon, we hardly knew you.

Chris Simon is headed to Russia to play for Vityaz Chekhov.

Not exactly the highlight of Doug Risebrough’s career, the late-in-the-day trade deadline move that brought Simon to the Wild was widely criticized. I gave Simon the benefit of the doubt, as he seemed to honestly be happy to be here.

For better or for worse, we never really got to see if he was reformed or not. That’s a hard thing to prove when you’re sitting in the press box…

Former Wild Players still in the chase:

• Jim Dowd (PHI)
• Pascal Dupuis (PIT)
• Adam Hall (PIT)
• Johan Holmqvist (DAL)

I know he’s with Hossa and Crosby, but you’ve got to feel happy for Dufus, er, Dupuis.

Go Wings!

From wild.nhl.com:

“When you are younger, it’s a lot easier to make a decision. At the end of the year, I said I wanted to ask questions of Doug [Risebrough]. I wanted to make sure my boss is happy with the work I am doing and with the way I manage the team. This is what we talked about in our meetings. I am reassured of my work and I want to coach again.

“My satisfaction behind the bench is getting the team to play the best it can, individually and as a group. Success will come with that.”

With all of the other open coaching positions, this adds a little certainty to the Wild for next year. It remains to be seen, however, just what it was that Lemaire learned from Risebrough in Tampa that made him decide to stay another year…

The first change to the Wild roster for next year is official: Mike Russo reports the Troll is headed to Switzerland.

I felt bad for him during his Wild tenure, as he seemed to wear out by the end of the 2006-2007 season and spent a lot of the past season in the press box, despite other injuries and weaknesses both on the blue line and up front.

Last year my daughter and I went to see him with Koivu at one of the player appearances and he was just the nicest guy.

Alles Gute, Mr. Nummelin!

The Wild state their organizational values are team, preparation, honesty and passion. The issue this season, however, seemed to be leadership.

Multiple leadership issue were a factor this year:

• The Wes Walz retirement.
• Mid-season change in ownership.
• Lack of trade deadline moves.
• Noticeable frustration from the coaching staff.

Instead of lingering on this season (which the marketing department likes to do), let’s look at what the future holds for the Wild.

New Owners

Craig Leipold brings hope to the Wild faithful, but his initial comments (“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”) and the restrictions of the salary cap don’t paint a great picture. His open letter to fans also makes one wonder:

And I pledge to do my part to keep making this team even better. Because as great as you make the atmosphere off the ice, it is my duty to make the team on the ice the very best it can be. I believe in the system that Doug Risebrough and his hockey staff have built here, and I support them 100%. My goal is winning; not to tinker with success. I just want to give them the tools they need to carry out their plan as best they can.

We’ll come back to Doug Risebough and his hockey staff in a minute, but Mr. Leipold finishes up his letter with the following:

Now, we’re beginning the Stanley Cup playoffs; one of 16 teams with a shot at a championship. I look forward to seeing you at each and every game. And I make no secret of hoping, one day soon, that I’ll see you at the parade the State of Hockey so richly deserves, and the Stanley Cup finally comes to where it belongs.

Part of leadership involves setting goals and expectations and I’m glad to see someone at the Wild mention the Cup. As a season ticket holder, I’m looking for two things: entertainment and a championship. If the team wasn’t fun to watch, they wouldn’t sell out every game.

The previous ownership never seemed to focus on winning the Cup (too Minnesota Nice to say what we want?). Enough talk about good effort, fight to the end, etc. The goal is the Cup!

Wes Walz and Doug Risebrough

I said I wasn’t going to linger on the past season, but I can’t start to talk about Doug Risebrough without talking about Wes Walz.

We’ll never know if there was more to the story or not, but retiring in the middle of the season was not a move a good leader makes. And Walz was apparently the leader on the team, as no one else seemed to step up to take on that role as the season continued. I appreciate what Walz meant to the team over the years, but his decision mid-season really hurt the team.

As for Risebrough, I’m sure there is plenty we don’t know about the trade deadline and what went on behind the scenes. But the fact of the matter is that with Walz leaving, the Wild were short at center and there was plenty of time to look for a replacement before the trade deadline. The market for big-name centers wasn’t huge, but other teams were able to make deals that didn’t mortgage their future. Then again, with the change in ownership hanging over the trade deadline, maybe the plan was to stand still for now and wait until Mr. Leipold took over. And there is the possibility that Risebrough was coasting anyway–uncertainty with a new owner, opportunities with other teams, etc.

It seems that Wild hockey operations didn’t have the greatest of years this season. In addition to Walz and the trade deadline, there were several instances when the Wild seemed to mishandle the mundane (filing paperwork with the league to make players eligible, roster move issues with Houston bringing players up and down, customs issues when Sheppard signed, etc.). I don’t know enough about what Tom Lynn (Assistant General Manager/Hockey Operations) and Tom Thompson (Assistant General Manager/Player Personnel) do, but you have to wonder if the new owner truly believes the hockey operations employees are the best in the league.

Coaching

Jacques Lemaire appears ready to walk away. His team seemed to stopped listening to him half-way through the season and the disdain between him and Gaborik was not a big secret. Lemaire’s post-game comments after each game are one of my favorite things to listen to and we all know his history of achievement in the NHL. His style of hockey doesn’t appeal to all players (and fans), but I disagree with anyone who says that Wild games are boring to watch because of the coach.

That said, it may be time for a change. If the new owner ends up having to shake things up everywhere else, why not at least consider a new coach? Rumors earlier in the year pointed to the hiring of Kevin Constantine in Houston as the heir-apparent to Lemaire and a season ticket holder in San Jose that I know had nothing but praise for him when he coached there. Aside from him being a Minnesotan and having lots of NHL experience, I don’t know enough about him to lean one way or another.

Those calling for Mike Ramsey have some valid points, but he seems like a wild card to me. The hockey background is great: Gopher, 1980 Miracle on Ice player, Sabres defenseman and Wild assistant since the beginning. No head coaching experience and perhaps too close to status quo for the new owner, though.

All that said, having Lemaire back with a new supporting cast would not be a bad thing either.

Free Agency

As reported all over, the Wild have a lot of roster decisions to make this summer. According to NHL Numbers, the Wild have ten unrestricted free agents and four restricted free agents to deal with. Add to that the Gaborik situation and this team will look very different next fall.

Let’s start with who we have locked up longer term: Schultz for six more years, Burns for four, Koivu and Parrish for three and Belanger, Sheppard, Boogaard and Johnsson for two. The first three are awesome. Belanger flamed out early this year and I really hope that Parrish just had the wrong partners this season.

Sheppard is a work in progress that hopefully will benefit from the forced big-time experience. The marketing department (and a lot of fans) love Boogaard, but his days may be numbered by health issues and a changing game. Johnsson is usually solid when he doesn’t have to play 30 minutes a game for weeks on end (but probably not $5 million solid).

As for the free agents, let’s look at the RFA’s first. Pierre-Marc Bouchard is small and likes to go for the fancy pants play more than I like, but if the price is right, I’ll take his 50 assists again next year. Nice guy too–drove through a blizzard two years ago to sign autographs for the fans.

Stephane Veilleux – ginger boy is aggressive, gritty and plays with determination and emotion. Need his fire and the price is right. Should sign an endorsement deal with the Gophers.

Aaron Voros – same type of character as Veilleux without the red hair. Needs to calm down and not take stupid penalties. Bring him back.

Kurtis Foster – supposedly already re-signed, but who knows if Risebrough will be around to honor his verbal commitment. Wild will be short on the blue line and need a healthy Foster back on the point, especially during the power play. We used to joke that Foster was Australian for Skoula, but that joke isn’t funny any more.

On the UFA side of things, the two big ones are of course Rolston and Demitra. My feelings on these two have reversed over the course of the year. I bought one of the first Demitra jerseys in town, but feel a bit let down. There is still nothing like watching Demitra feed Gabby on a breakaway, but it didn’t happen enough for how much that duo would cost next year. Of course if Demo goes, you need to deal with Gaborik, but I’ll leave that conversation for another day.

As for Rolston, I thought he was sort of a one-shot wonder who didn’t play at 100% all the time. My opinion has changed, as he seemed to step into a leader role and really played his butt off at the end of the year (he’s still a one-shot wonder, but it’s a damn good shot). Mixed reports in the news about his intentions, but I’d try to get him back if the money isn’t insane.

This post is getting way longer than I intended, so here’s a summary of the rest:

Keepers: Radivojevic, Fedoruk
Drop: Foy, Simon, Kelly, Carney, Nummelin, Hill

I’ll leave goaltending and a review of “in the system” players for another day as well.

The 2008–09 NHL season will be a fun one no matter what happens, as we get to play every team (hurray!) and the All-Star Game will be in Montreal to celebrate the Canadiens’ 100th Anniversary. Also looking forward to June 20–21 in Ottawa for the 46th NHL Entry Draft. And just a reminder about the draft from Wikipedia:

The Minnesota Wild’s sixth round pick will go to the New York Islanders due to a trade on February 26, 2008 that sent Chris Simon to Minnesota in exchange for this pick. The Minnesota Wild’s seventh round pick will go to the New Jersey Devils due to a trade on February 27, 2007 that sent Aaron Voros to Minnesota in exchange for this pick.

Will Mr. Risebrough be in Ottawa spending Mr. Leipold’s money or someone else’s?

And so the fight ends…

Missed the first and second period attending the Current’s excellence Fakebook series at the Fitzgerald, but I’ll probably go back and watch the DVR recording later.

Not much to say about the third period–didn’t see the killer desire needed to get that last goal and the Avs played great shut-down defense. Disappointing end to the season, but I get to shave the scratchy playoff beard and save some serious money on additional playoff tickets.

Congratulations to the Colorado Avalanche–good luck against the Red Wings (most likely).

Hockey in Minnesota will go into off-season mode shortly, but I’ll have a few more posts about the Wild season and maybe track a few former Wild players still in the Stanley Cup playoffs (hello Dufus!). My golf site, Golfing in Minnesota, will return from off-season mode this week, so please subscribe to that RSS feed if you are a Minnesota hockey and golf fan.

“Save by Theodore”

Wow, I hate those three words. What an outstanding game by Jose, though. Other thoughts from this game:

• Thoroughly enjoyed the first and second period, despite the 1-1 tie at the end of two.
• Finally got a new video intro before the game, which even had the Ginger Boy and his chipmunk taunt.
• EDGE internet access at the X is definitely broken – heard others talking about it too.
• If we can’t get free wireless or internet access, how about more live stats on the various scoreboards? No shot totals, ice time or anything during the intermissions (which we did get during the regular season).
• No cute marketing events tonight at all – they actually played part of the Caps-Flyers OT live during the second intermission. LOVED that.
• The Wild came out very strong at the start and basically dominated all aspects of this game, except for blocked shots (15 to 4) and the all-important final score.
• Mr. Reitz looked pretty decent in his season premiere 5:47 of ice time in the big show.
• Both Koivu and Gaborik looked off tonight. I remember a few mis-cues from Burns too.
• Thank goodness there were only 3 penalties per team tonight.
• Such a shame that Benny was quick on the draw when Demo let that slapper fly. Totally different game if that counted.

Next game: 9pm Saturday in Colorado on FSN North (HD). Bring it back home for one more…

Just finished watching the DVR recording of game four. Jacques blamed the D for the loss and while the 7 give-aways were critical, the Avs had 11 and I thought two of the first three goals should have been stopped by Backstrom. A few other thoughts:

• Didn’t like the officiating, but not because it was unbalanced. Just hate to see playoff games called so close.
• “Attendance 18,007 at Pepsi Center” – they did manage to sell out.
• Bad face-off night for Koivu – only 38% (60/40 overall in favor of the Avs).
• The bright side of no OT – top minutes were only 23:45 (Skoula).
• Ginger Boy mocking McLeod in the penalty box was classic.
• Jose is really playing well – need to keep rattling him and putting people in front of the net.
• Johnsson, the $4.8 million dollar man, was a -3.
• There is a delicate balance between playing gritty and playing stupid.

Up next: game five back at the X tomorrow night. The best revenge is a W…

Way to go Butch!

Watched on Versus in Seattle tonight and I thought I was going to have a heart attack in my hotel room…

Great win for the Wild–just hope they have some gas left in the tank tomorrow (Burns – 32:21, Johnnson – 31:36, Skoula – 30:12). Of course, the old men Avs should be just as tired, but we’ll see tomorrow night.

I’ll be in the air during the game, but the DVR is set to record. Go Wild!