Ottawa v Minnesota Game Review

Ottawa have had a tough start to the season, losing 5-3 and 6-5 so far and looking were looking for a better defensive performance in this one.

Ottawa started the game with a PP and chances for Spezza and Alfredsson but Minnesota held on and killed the penalty well. The first 8 minutes the Senators were really on top, taking the game to the Wild with Backstrom seeing a lot of the puck.  They would have been disappointed when the Wild then took the lead with a Brosiak tip infront from what seemed a soft shot by Stoner towards the goal.

Kassian and Konopka then decided it was time to drop the gloves and a pretty even battle of the heavyweights ensued. Konopka picked up an extra 2 minutes for instigation but the Wild couldn’t capitalise on the PP. A ragin dash through centre ice saw his long shot take a funny bounce back off the boards and through the crease but Foligno failed to carrel the puck and his attempt went just wide.

Minnesota took a 2-0 lead before the end of the period after a series of bad plays again by veterans on the Ottawa side. 1^st Spezza took a ridiculous slashing penalty, retaliating as he was skating off the ice for  a line change and being caught for it. Gonchar then failed to clear the zone on the resulting PP, only sending the puck round the boards and straight back to Koivu who in turn found Heatley and he set up Setoguchi for the one timer. That was the end of the 1^st period and despite a better performance the Senators still found themselves down on the scoreboard.

Brosiak had a great chance early in the 2^nd period to make it 3-0 as he skated in alone on Anderson but the netminder got a piece of it and fended it off. Nick Foligno got the Senators back into the game just before the halfway stage of the 2^nd as his line with Neil and Ragin did some great work in crashing the net and he tucked a loose puck away from close range. Ottawa at this point were outshooting Minnesota 10-1 in the 2^nd period.

Ottawa continued to dominate the period but the score remained at 2-1 going into the 3^rd. Only 2 minutes into the 3^rd the Wild got their 2 goal lead back as Johnson made a strong play to the net and the puck pinballed off numerous players infront, creeping in over the line. As the play went to review the puck clearly did go completely over the line and the goal stood. This incensed Ottawa as Phillips had his stick broken on a slash as the play was made and the officials missed the call.

 

Chris Neil made it 3-2 with almost 14 minutes left with another goal that went to review as he clipped the puck high into the net from a tight angle. It hit the back of the netting and shot straight out which confused the officials as they original waved no goal which lead to a melee infront with players squaring off to each other in a mad few minutes of scuffling.

Michalek and Clutterbuck were both given 2 minute roughing penalties from that scuffle and a further 2 minutes were then taken by Minnesota as Zidlicky was called for high sticking. This led to open ice and some great chances for the Senators with Colin Greening tying the game on the 5 on 4 pp as he stood infront of the net acting as a screen and picked up a loose puck and found the five hole of Nicklas Backstrom.

Both teams battled for the rest of the 3^rd with Minnesota coming back into the game a little. However, neither team were able to find the winning goal in regulation and it headed into OT. The overtime period was a pretty quick one with neither team able to capitalise on the open ice situation and the game headed into penalty shots. Michalek took the first shot and he buried his attempt. Koivu then missed. Both Spezza and Cullen put their attempts away meaning captain Daniel Alfredsson had the chance to win the game with his shot and he put the puck into the twine and the Sens won 4-3 after PS.

My star for the game was Chris Neil of Ottawa. He picked up a goal and an assist, was a pest all game and made some big hits when his team were 2-0 down to try and motivate the Senators. He was all over ex Ottawa man Dany Heatley, much to the delight of the home fans and his line with Ragin and Foligno played well all night.

by Adam Yates

Poetic Justice Served as Ryan Scores Using Koivu's Stick

After Anaheim Duck Bobby Ryan scored on Sunday night, chances are good that he was holding up his stick in the air specifically for Minnesota Wild captain Mikko Koivu to see. He was likely trying to emphasize the fact that even though Koivu had stolen his stick earlier in the play, he had found one alright on his way to putting the game out of reach en route to a 6-2 Ducks victory.

The one good thing about this whole embarrassing incident for Koivu? He had the benefit of not committing such a blatantly illegal act in front of his older brother, Saku, who plays for the Ducks and was scratched due to the flu. Of course, the elder Koivu may have actually gotten sicker watching his younger brother behave as he did later on on SportsCenter. Way to go Mikko... weren't you taught that stealing is wrong growing up? I don't know how they do things in Finland, where customs may vary from our own, but, here, in North America, if we're going to render an opponent useless, we at least have the decency to do so the good old-fashioned way, by laying them out with a shot to the head. Then the stick is fair game. It's not like they'll be using it then.

Live and learn Mikko. Live and learn. Maybe next time, you can actually follow some of your brother's life lessons, you know, at least the ones after the nasty getting-injured-all-the-time and becoming-insanely- loyal-to-one-franchise-the-length-of-your-career-just-so-it-and-its-fanbase-can-turn-their-backs-on-you-in-the-hopes-that-career-underachiever-Alexei-Kovalev-is-signed instead bits.

The Wild Is to Hockey What Wild Wild West Was to Movies

America’s Wild West was renowned for big-dollar-driven gold prospectors, action-packed shootouts, and impressively fast draws to match. The Minnesota Wild of the NHL’s Western Conference is conversely known for its lack of big-name talent, boring style of play, and recently broken sell-out streak.

Needless to say, luck and a bunch of other things don’t seem to be on the Wild’s side this year. In a span of just 20 days, the following has happened:

1)     The aforementioned sell-out streak ended at 409 games.

2)     Supposed-number-one-center-of-the-future James Sheppard got put on the shelf for four months after an ATV accident, further off-roading his by-now inauspicious career path.

3)     Back-up goalie Josh Harding tore his ACL and MCL after Saint Louis Blues forward Brad Boyes collided with him, bringing new meaning to the saying: “Bad Boyes, Bad Boyes”. Apparently, all Harding is gonna do is likely miss the entire season.

4)     Leading goal-scorer Guillaume Latendresse confessed to the media that he could envision himself returning to the Montreal Canadiens later on his career, despite his having just signed a two-year, $5-million contract with the Wild. He added, as if to convince himself, that his head is really “in Minnesota”.

I’m sure it serves as little consolation to Wild fans that these events all took place in the pre-season, during which the games mean nothing.

In fact, the ended sell-out streak is proof positive of that and that the team’s fans have become fed up with a team that has regressed in recent years and has deemed it perfectly alright to dress an entire team of glorified third-liners, with the possible exception of captain Mikko Koivu, who was initially projected as one himself before he exceeded expectations and became a bona-fide star.

As for Martin Havlat, he still has to earn his six-year, $30-million deal, because the 54 points he notched last season are about as impressive as Sheppard’s uneventful career thus far. Despite being taken ninth overall in the 2006 draft, Sheppard’s looked more like a wide-eyed sheep caught in the headlights than a herder, or anything else coming close to resembling a hockey player. And I thought haggis was foul.

Meanwhile, back to the original point, it’s not as if his or Harding’s injuries will magically heal come the start of the season. Sure, Harding’s just the back-up and the team’s hopes still rest on the shoulders of Niklas Backstrom, but, even so, Harding was a potential number-one in the making who could have served as trade bait to any one of the countless teams bound to need help in the crease later on this season.

And then you have Latendresse, apparently so in love with his hometown that he seems to forget that that’s where he was booed incessantly for his lack of effort and eventually earned the nickname Fatendresse. Maybe Latendresse has turned over a new leaf and acknowledges he could have tried harder in years past. Maybe he realizes it could have been worse and fans could have substituted the “esse” in his name for “ass” as well. Hell, maybe he was just humouring the Montreal media as, it should be noted, he was just responding to a hypothetical question from a reporter asked during his team’s pre-season visit there.

Whatever the case, Latendresse has much more important things to worry about, starting with trying to justify his new contract. Chances are the overstated scoring binge he went on last year (25 goals in 55 games, while very good, doesn’t even amount to 40 over a whole season) was a fluke seeing as he had never scored more than 16 before. This newfound identity crisis should, at the very least, be put on the backburner along with his overinflated ego born out of all-too-quick comparisons to Guy Lafleur early in his career. As he should know firsthand, chants of the name “Guy” can easily change to ones of the word “guy”, as in “just a”, in a flash.

"Who's going to notice, here in Montreal?"

When all is said and done, Latendresse isn’t the only one suffering from a lack of a properly defined identity. At least when Jacques Lemaire was the team’s head coach, the Wild knew what they were: a hard-working team that didn’t have enough talent and had to play the trap to succeed. Now, under Todd Richards, they are a team that has even less talent that doesn’t know how to play the trap properly. They may still work hard, but so does a strip club’s B-list talent working the midday shift. At least the strippers have primetime to aspire to. For much of the Wild, this is as good as it’s going to get.

Additions Eric Nystrom, Matt Cullen, John Madden, and Brad Staubitz aren’t going to be able to check their way onto the scoresheet enough to make a difference. Ditto for Cal Clutterbuck who’s essentially a one-trick pony. It also remains to be seen if Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Brent Burns can put their concussion problems behind them.

The Wild are a mediocre team. In what will likely be a tough Western Conference once again, if the Detroit Red Wings, who annually find a way to contend for the conference championship, are the good, the Wild, who used to be able to win ugly, will just be bad... and miss the playoffs by a wide margin.