DEE-ICING

Pronunciation: (dē-ˈīsing).

Function: transitive verb.

Definitions -

1 : Process of unwinding after a Wild hockey game.

2 : Process of leaving a lifetime of cold and snow in Minnesota behind for warmer climates.

3 : My random thoughts on hockey, life and the pursuit of really good tequila. (no politics allowed)

4 : Relief from insomnia.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Every Player/Every Shift...Umm, Really?

I Call Shenanigans 
It doesn't matter which side of the river's newspaper you subscribe to, the message from Yeo is the same.  He's displeased with his players for not coming to the rink ready to play for the full 60 minutes.   Gee, it only took Yeo six games into his first NHL coaching stint to figure that out.  Todd Richards was either clueless for two full seasons or just never wanted to acknowledge the gorilla in the room, even while it was breathing down his neck.  I said this the last two seasons but here goes again:
The problem is in the locker room and it's not with any of the newer players. 
Now it appears that Yeo, Russo and even some of the players are saying it out loud.  Excerpt from Russo's Rants after the loss to Pittsburgh:

"The flat start better sound off alarm bells. Coach Mike Yeo said it was on him, but baloney. As Devin Setoguchi said, it's on the players to come out jacked, it's on the leadership corps"
Problem is the Wild was playing at home, and its objective is to make Xcel Energy Center a tough arena to play in again for the visitor. It certainly wasn't that way tonight.
That's why the media was awkwardly ushered out of the locker room after the game because of a short team meeting that would follow.
There was just little sense of urgency in the first period, and certainly not that assertive, aggressive, fast hockey Yeo expects to see."
Yeo broke up Setoguchi-Mikko Koivu-Dany Heatley to start the second. The line has no even-strength goals the past five games -- scoring one power-play goal in Ottawa. Heatley's chances are getting fewer and fewer, and tonight, he had one shot and two missed nets. Setoguchi tried to force him the puck a few times in the first, and it didn't work.
And Koivu? No goals and three assists and a .495 faceoff win percentage and a lot of turnovers in six games for the $6.75 million captain.
On one of the goals, Niklas Backstrom gave up a cheesy one to James Neal.
Tonight, the Penguins were minus five or six of their big players, including Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. Marc-Andre Fleury was a spectatorAnd the Wild still didn't come out with the urgency needed to beat a team this prime for the kicking.

There were plenty of WTF moves made by any number of Wild players in Tuesday night's game so don't be thinkin' I'm all hatin' on just Koivu, Heatley and Backstrom. 
There were also some things to be happy with: Bulmer's working his butt off to show he belongs here for yet another game.  Clutterbuck seems to be on track to being his old self: nagging pain in the opponent's sides and scoring goals when nobody's lookin'.  Colton looked good out there and you just can't help but be proud of how he's handled his situation in getting here.  Powe continues to impress and Cullen seems to be in "message received" mode like Latendresse.              

Yeo's comments on Wednesday after practice, courtesy of Russo's Rants (can you find the football reference Youngblood mistakenly uses?):

After this loss, Yeo wasn't so pleased with his team's effort, describing the way they began the first quarter as "sleepwalking."
As for the lapses the team displayed at different points in the game? "For me, effort is a lot more than skating in a straight line," Yeo said. "It's the second effort, and third effort you show me. If you're on a forecheck and they move the puck somewhere else, do you say, 'My job is done now?' Or do you stay on the hunt, keep pursuing and keep tracking, do whatever you can to create a turnover? It's jumping on a loose puck and taking a hit to make a play. it's making a hard play, winning your one-on-one battles. And I don't think it was at the level that we needed last night."
Fairly strong words, I'd say. Perhaps more interesting was the Yeo went on to say he expected these lapses early in the season. Yeo feels he is trying to change the culture of the team, and knows it doesn't happen overnight. I'll write more about this later, but he was quite specific about the issue. "To think you can come in and flip a switch? It doesn't happen," he said. "You're changing habits. We're asking a lot. But that kind of stuff, more than anything, takes time. But it will come. I know that. I know it."

And like Russo said the night before: BALONEY!! 
Changing Habits??  What, asking a player to go from not earning his paycheck to coming to the rink prepared to skate hard for 60 minutes is a culture change?  It's called an ETHIC and why on earth should Yeo feel like that's his responsibility to change and that he's asking a lot of these guys? 
Good Lord - just do it like you did with Latendresse.  Apparently he got the message: "Get yourself in shape or spend the next season in the press box waiting to be traded for a bag of used pucks.  Your shit from last season ain't gonna fly going forward."  Gui did just that and is working his ass off to show he's worth the paycheck - so far.   
Why on earth should Yeo (or the GM or the owner, for that matter) feel they have to handle these players like they're being asked to sacrifice their very lives?   

It's a shame that nobody's addressed this before the second coach in three seasons got here.  Now the question is: Can Yeo do something about it?  Will he have the support of the GM and owner to do whatever that something is? 

Makeup!!
Note to Wild photographer: Please work some photoshop magic on Matt Cullen's head shot for the jumbotron starting line up announcement. Lord, he looks like a tired washed-up old man in that shot. Not intimidating or fierce at all.    

And Now For Some Ornithology
What the hell does this have to do with hockey?  Thanks to the mostly entertaining but sometimes obnoxiously drunk Penguins fans sitting behind us, it has everything to do with hockey. 
Drunk Guy 1: What's a Wild?
Drunk Guy 2: I dunno...but I think it trumps a bird
Drunk Guy 1: Bird?  Who's the Bird?
Drunk Guy 2: The Penguns, Dude!
DG1: Ohhh...Are Penguins a bird?
DG2: I think so...lemme think about this...
DG1: Okay, so there's like eagles and hawks and the ones that fly...what's next?
DG2: Then there'd be the ducks cuz they can fly and swim. 
DG1: The and chickens and the penguins would come after that.
DG2: Yeah, cuz chickens can fly and penguins can't so they'd come last. 

Dee and Vicki:  WTF are they talking about??     
Dave: Actually, it sounds like a good stab at the order of things (says this with mostly a straight face)
Dee, Vicki and Alex: Rolling off our seats with laughter and wiping tears from our eyes. 
This turned out to be the highlight of the night since the game had already gone to hell in a hand basket. 
And just for giggles - turns out the drunk Pens fans weren't too far off the mark.  Here's the actual order of the Subclass Neornithes, Superorder Neognathae:
Note there is no listing for a Wild so I think we can rule out Bird when answering the decade old question: What's A Minnesota Wild?

Because it wouldn't be an Ornithology lesson without this video: 


And of course there's this little ditty...


Sunday, October 16, 2011

5 Games In or as I like to call it... Same Shit, Different Season

Every Player - Every Shift...Yeah, Right
I knew it wouldn't take long before Craig and his PR Minions would be regretting that whole Every Player - Every Shift motto for this season but I thought perhaps it would take a little longer than the third game into the season.  It only took 2 games this year and the Wild players, old and new alike, are back to taking shifts and entire periods of each game off.  I'm not sure why they bother coming out of the dressing room sometimes since it appears to be such a horrendous strain on them.  I suppose a warm body is better than no body?  Actually I think I'd prefer no body than having to watch lifeless blobs skate around the rink collecting a big, fat paycheck while not actually earning it.  
It's bad enough when the players decide to make a mockery of the game when playing teams like Ottawa, Columbus and Edmonton.  But Saturday night the Wild players decided they were All That & A Bag of Chips after mounting a 2-0 lead over the Red Wings by early in the second period.  See, here's the problem(s) with that kind of mentality:
1. It's the Red Wings
2. There were still 35 minutes of hockey left in the game
3. The Red Wings were already outshooting us 23-9 at that point
4. The Red Wings were starting to outskate, outpass, outperform us at that point
5. It's the Red Wings
In short order the Hockey Town team made fools out of the State of Hockey team and never looked back.  The Wings passed with laser precision.  They gained and owned our zone without any hesitation, nor was there much in the way of resistance from our players.  The Wings skated circles around the Wild and had our players chasing their own shadows.  Thank God for Josh Harding.  He faced 41 shots and was SCINTILLATING to use Russo's usual description of Backstrom's performances (shootouts notwithstanding). 

The silver lining in tonight's debacle:
1. Josh Harding - welcome back, buddy!
2. Greg Zanon's goal - first one since December of 2009
3. The way the team played in the 1st period
4. 5 games played: 6 points, 2nd place in the conference (3 way tie for first place). 
5. It is just the 5th game of the season, after all

Fun Things to Read and Follow
I have a new favorite NHL blog and I'm betting it's going to be yours as well.  Head over The Score website and click on the NHL tab or the BLOGS tab.   The Backhand Shelf blog will have you falling out of your chair laughing while at the same time making some serious hockey sense. 
Humorous must reads from the blog include:
"The Backhand Shelf Advice Columns; Streaky Goalie Edition"
"The Top 5 Easy To Verbally Abuse Players"
"4 Thoughts From Last Night's NHL Action"
"Tea With Ms. Conduct: The Puckbunny Conundrum"

For those of you who actively tweet or simply like to lurk about here's a few of the hockey folks I follow:
burnzie88 (Brent Burns)
msconduct10 (Ms. Conduct)
wyshynski (Puck Daddy)
russostrib (Michael Russo)
walz3737 (Wes Walz)
styleswild (Tony Da Costa)
rstanzel (Ryan Stanzel)
thirdintermission (Houston Aeros)

For Vicki: who fell in love even more (is that possible?) with Mikko after finding out who his all time favorite band is

Sunday, October 9, 2011

GAME ON!

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Home Opener, Season Eleven and I got to take it all in from the best seats at the X with the best hockey partner a gal could ever ask for - Vicki!  We thought we were doomed at the end of season ten, destined to be a thousand miles apart from each other when the 2011-2012 season began.  If we learn anything from life it's that all the planning in the world doesn't mean a thing when the Big Guy has other ideas.  My time here in the State of Hockey is limited so we're making the best of it and opening night is something I never get tired of experiencing.  Yes, the STH pennants for waving were a little on the tchotchke side but the Wild Calendars are a time cherished tradition so it all balances out in the end.  
Emotions ran high on many levels, both jubilant and and sorrowful.  Click here to watch the 10.8.11 tribute to Boogaard and Demitra.  When you're done wiping away the tears watch the 10.8.11 Game Teaser and tell me you weren't feeling goosebumps at the prospect of this team's future.  I dare you to not be excited for the second decade of the Minnesota Wild! after watching that video.  Let me temper that however, by saying I think Craig, Chuck and Mike will have to do some "managing of expectations" at some point because of this year's team motto: EVERY PLAYER/EVERY SHIFT/EVERY FAN.  Good Luck with that considering this team's history of taking shifts, periods and entire games off for no apparent reason other than - they feel like it. 
 
I will admit to being caught up with the other ecstatic 19,039 fans who were on their feet sending our team off the ice after the first period with a standing ovation and deafening cheers.  So often over the last 2 seasons the half empty arena was filled with disappointed and disgruntled fans sending the team off the ice with boos and jeers.  Vicki and I looked at each and asked "are we really having fun instead of being bummed?"  It dawned on us heading into the second period that we were watching some beautifully executed plays by not only our much improved first line but all the way down to the fourth line.  The third period was our Not So Much Every Player/Not So Much Every Shift period but overall the game was...okay this is going to sound awfully giddy for just the first game of the season but here it is anyway...THRILLING!!   
Heatly and Setoguchi are the shot in the arm Mikko needs and they did not fail to impress on opening night.  Matt Cullen must have felt on top of the world after scoring the first goal of the season for the Wild.  But I'm guessing his wife had something to say about his faceoff percentages after the game ;)  I loved Scandella's game even before he scored his first NHL goal, off the pass from SPURGE!  What a thrill for 19 year old Bulmer making his NHL debut with his folks in the stands to witness it.  Love me some Powe and I'm very excited to see Colton Gilles take the next step this season.  He's going to be a work ethic leader someday, kind of like a certain player I obsess about...  Pierre Marc Bouchard had a great night, right up until he UNINTENTIONALLY drew a 4 minute major for highsticking.  I won't get into PMB's 2 game suspension here because I don't want to detract from the gloriousness that was Home Opener 2011 but I'm pretty wound up about it.  So, anyway - Backstrom was simply magnificent, both in net and in his stretching routine before each period...canihaveacoldwaternowplease...whew, all better :)  There are almost too many things to list here that contributed to making the home opener such a fabulous night at the X but here's my absolute number one star of the game:          


I know that Vicki's number one star of the game is the return of the original formatting for the game programs.  Way to go, Craig - you done good. 

It's still very early but to Mike Yeo's credit at least the post game pressers are a breath of fresh air.  He actually admits to the players having a bad period.  He can actually remember having seen the crappy period/shift/play the reporters are talking about - he doesn't need to "watch the film" or "review the tape."  Just sayin'.  

Ooh, and speaking of post game pressers...can I get an AMEN! for the NHL on FM.  The Minnesota Wild radio broadcasts are now on KFAN 100.3 FM.  Set your presets in the car and on your ipod nanos (generations 5 & 6) cuz Bob Kurtz and Tom Reid sound darn near sexy!      

And, as if things couldn't get any better there's this: Wes Walz has joined the Wild's Broadcast team and will work on the FSN's pre and post game segments.  Wes in a suit and that smile...pleasecanihaveashotoftequilanow...dang - still warm and tingling all over ;)  Gonna be streaming FSN on my laptop for sure!   

For Dave - The Wild's latest player to wear the number 15 is faster and Bruno will be the first to admit it, but to Wild fans he will ALWAYS be the Real #15.  Congratulations on your first goal as a Blackhawk, Andrew!
  

Oh, and also for Dave: Petr Sykora signed a one year contract with the New Jersey Devils, marking his return to the NHL after 18 months of playing somewhere nobody gives a crap about.  I guess that Sykora Wild jersey you picked up on super clearance is finally worth, er...could be valuable, oops...has paid for itself...ahhh nevermind.  
The Classic Wink Smiley