Random Hockey Thoughts

Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?
I get that it's an honor to be acknowledged, to get the nod to play in the All Star Game.  Quite honestly, I'd love to see OttoawaGhost put his hysterical spin on Koivu's trip to The Show.  But beyond the need for a good belly laugh I'm struggling with the fact that the Wild, and Mikko himself, were even entertaining the thought of Mikko playing for anyone except his own team right now. 
I'm sorry, but when I was growing up if I was too sick to go to school then I was too sick to go out to the movies with my friends that night.  
Mikko's injury has been listed as a Week-to-Week serious shoulder injury which is keeping him out of the Wild's nightly lineup. At a time when injuries are already wreaking havoc on this team Chuck Fletcher called Brendan ShanaBan and asked him to delay naming a replacing for Koivu in hopes that a few DAYS would make enough difference so that Mikko could be a Fuckin' All Star, just like Dany Heatley.  I'm guessing Chuck is one of those parents who lets his kids go to the movies tonight even though they were too sick to go to school today.
Mikko should be leading 'his' team by doing the right thing at this crucial time.  The Wild is a team of individuals in desperate need of a true leader.  I don't think Mikko Koivu is that guy - and it isn't all just about whether or not he plays in the All Star Game.  I've felt this way for some time, a little over two seasons.  The temper tantrums when called out for his personal alck of play, or the team as a whole, have soured me on our second-ever appointed 'franchise' player. 
I get that other players will be taking advantage of the time off this week and doing some family bonding, perhaps traveling to warmer climates.  I also get that this week is a time of sleeping in their own beds, letting those physical bumps and bruises heal.  But for some of our key players I would think the time would be best spent getting back to what works to make this Wild team a...well, a TEAM.  So I'm struggling with the fact that Mikko didn't just come out last week to say "thanks for the honor but my priority is here with my team while we're working to come back together."  Instead, he and Fletcher waited until they just couldn't put it off any more due to the nature of the long healing process.    
It really is a shame that Mikko won't be making an appearance at the All Star Game.  Maybe the extra three days that make up the All Star Weekend will be just the ticket for Mikko.  Maybe he'll be back in the lineup next Tuesday when the Nashville Predators come to town.  Maybe he'll pick right up where his red hot season left off before the shoulder injury kept him out of school, and out of the movie theater.  

A More Deserving All Star!
Nick Johnson, one of the few real 60 Minute Men on the Wild, will be representin' as a rookie at the All Star Game Weekend by taking part in the skills competition on Saturday.  Nick is currently tied for 10th in rookie scoring with 16 points in 44 games.  CONGRATS, Nick!!  Side note: Nick Johnson was picked up off of waivers from the Penguins before the season started.  This leads me to the next random thought...

Pens NW
So Sally and I were smack-talking our way through the Pens/Caps game on NATIONAL tv on Sunday afternoon when she mentioned that her team was quietly becoming Canada South.  I countered with the fact that my home team had not so quietly become Pens NW.  I was basing this on the fact that our management team has a definite Pittsburgh Penguins vein running through it.  Mike Yeo, having coached our Houston Aeros to the Calder Cup finals last season, has passed that DNA on to many on our current player roster as well.  Add to that the two players who've been in the Pittsburgh system: Nick Johnson and Kyle Brodziak.  Coming to this Pens-R-Us realization I was stunned to think that this would somehow make me a Pens fan by relativity.
 
Swear to God, I heard Sally's evil laugh through her texts.  

The Reason NBC & VS Will Always Televise Any Other Team But The Wild

I simply refer you to the Penguins vs Capitals game aired on NBC this past Sunday.  It was fast paced and both teams played all 60 minutes.  There was give-n-go & back-n-forth, digging in corners, races for pucks, drives to the net, heart stopping goalie saves, oohs & aahs and OHMYFUCKINGGOD's galore.  I'm fairly certain that Sally and I would have been covered in bruises had we been watching the game together.  Over a thousand miles apart we were both on the edges of our seats and unable to text fast enough to cover the last exciting play before the next beautiful odd-man rush appeared out of nowhere.  I needed a nap afterwards!  When, and I am ever the optimist, when the Wild decide to start playing 60 minute hockey night and night out they will not only find themselves back on top of the NHL but also in the limelight that is NATIONALLY televised hockey games on the NBC National Network channel & the NBCSPORTS cable channel on a regular basis.  Hint to Craig - this also goes for getting the Winter Classic here in the great state of hockey.

Hockey Day In Minnesota!

Gotta say I was feeling sorry for myself on Saturday, missing out on Hockey Day in Minnesota.  Hockey from morning till night!  The only thing better, in my estimation, would be a trip to the All Star Game simply for the tour of the crowded locker rooms after each of the assorted competitions and games. 

But I digress. 

Vicki and Emily promised to cheer the Wild on to a win to bring Hockey Day to a perfect close and they didn't disappoint!  Neither did the Wild, in a game they desperately need to win for a moral booster alone.  Of all of the games the Wild have played against the Stars in the last eleven years this one was one of the top three for me.  I love NHL debuts, the Cinderalla story of it all.  Chad Rau's debut was certainly the stuff hockey dreams are made of.  I really enjoy the camera shot of the parents standing in the crowd and cheering their son on.  All those years of expensive equipment, early morning practices, missed family events, cold arenas and lack of sleep melt away into sheer joy watching their son reach a goal he's been skating towards all of his life.  

And now on to the last game before the guys get a week off - Colorado Avs on Tuesday night.  Are the Wild on the right track back to finding their mojo?  

Weather Report

It rained pretty much all weekend here.  At one point the winds whipped up to 35 miles per hour which prompted the local tv weathermen/women to advise folks to take shelter.  Bitch, please!  I'm from the land of 70 mph straight line winds and tornadoes.  While the rain did come down in a wall you couldn't see through it was just that, only rain.  Apparently we're getting the rain which was missing all during the fall season.  This week calls for rain every day through Friday.  Georgia needs it in order to end the drought.  For that reason alone, I'm all for thirsty trees and shrubs getting what they need, I'm content to curl up with books and blogging to get through the dreary days.  The extended forecast calls for the sun to return in force on Saturday.  

    

Tina Turner

Wild 1, Maple Leafs 4

What's Love Got To Do With It?
My team sucks right now.  My team has sucked for some time now, truth be told.  Nothing's going right.  Players are sufferning from loose grey matter in their skulls or from the dreaded "upper/lower" body injuries, including a plague-like flu bug.  There's dissension in the ranks and the guys want to be anywhere but on the ice or on the team for that matter.  Not that this current death spiral into yet another year of missed playoffs is anything new for the Wild.  Heck, this is the norm for the Wild.  They've self destructed more often than not over the last 4-5 seasons.  This time last year everyone was calling for Todd Richards' firing and just days after the season was over we got what we wanted - his head on a platter.  Some said the Wild's collapse last season was the fault of Todd Richards and the fact that he had no real talent to work with. 
While Todd was soo out of his element here in MN, I've always blamed the last two seasons (and two of the previous seasons to that) of horrid play on the players.  They didn't want to be here.  They didn't feel the need to put in the effort.  They knew better than the coaches: both Lemaire and Richards.  They wouldn't work as a team because they thought individually they were bigger than than the team was as a whole.   
This season, in comes Mike Yeo along with what appeared to be the first really meaningful draft and trade moves made since the Wild's inception.  Havlat (a.k.a. locker room cancer) gone - Dany Heatley in.  We traded Burns for Devin Setoguchi, Charlie Coyle and Zack Phillips.  Dany and Devin were touted as just what the Wild needed in order to make Mikko shine the way everyone just knows he's capable of. 

We were told to cut the team some slack in the beginning of the season due to all of the CULTURE SHOCK surrounding a new coach and his style/system/approach to the game.  We sat through October and November watching as the team rarely, if ever, played a full 60 minutes of hockey - nothing new there.  We waited with baited breath for the emergence of said NEW CULTURE of play to take hold.  In December the team seemed to pick up  what Yeo was laying down and found ways to keep plugging and playing even when down by one or two goals.  The Wild started playing 'catch-up' hockey, making some impressive come backs and gaining the eventual win.  Still the team rarely played a full 60 minutes of hockey.  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as were the bulk of Wild fans and the team's beat writer.  The Wild sustained one injury after another, possibly rushing Latendresse back before he was completely healed.  Yet, the team pulled through by calling up Yeo's disciples from Houston.  For one glorious month the Wild were on fire in terms of racking up the wins, regardless of how many goals they were down by, regardless of what star/veteran players were out with aches and pains.  

Then the bottom fell out.  It wasn't a slow painful descent.  It was fast, like ripping off a BandAid from the hairiest part of your body.  It didn't matter who played with who on what line.  It didn't matter who got benched.  It didn't matter who got called up from Houston to replace the damaged, ill or concussed veterans.  Ultimately, fundamental hockey was thrown out the window and players stopped showing up for entire games, not just one or two periods.  The post game quote of "we didn't show up ready to play" was recorded and put on a loop to play over and over after every game.  Bag skates, team building, leadership training, days off.  Nothing seems to be working to get it through the players' heads that they have to show up for 60 minutes each and every game.  They have to get back to working hard for each other.   

And that's where we are today, January 19th.  From first place in the NHL to not making the playoffs if they started today.  We have Wild fans who are shocked and disturbed by the fall from playoff position.  Really?  Have you watched this team the last five years? It doesn't matter who the Wild bring in via trades or waivers or callups.  Unfortunately, the Wild has a history of bringing in players who are on the downstroke (Rich's word and I'm running with it) of their careers and expecting them to miraculously resurrect the stats of their youth.  Even when imported players are coming off 20 goal seasons (and we're THRILLED to get them because that's as awesome of a top six forward as we've traded for or signed outright) they dry up when coming to the State of Hockey.  At the same time the Wild makes franchise icons out of the existing players who would be second line players, at best, on any other team.  Thanks to oversized contracts and horrid personal play these players are not worth anything via trade and we're stuck with them for the rest of this season and beyond.  Thanks to long term injuries there are UFA's in the upcoming off season that will likely walk away while the Wild get zero in return for having rehabbed them and more importantly, having paid them boatloads of money while recovering.

Tell me I'm not the only one who's thinking this isn't any different than when Risebrough was managing the team?  We're at risk of losing money on existing overpaid players walking away for nothing.  We're continually bringing in subpar "star" players to hold us over while waiting desperately for our prospects to turn into the next Malkin, Ovechkin or Hall.  If I'm Mikail Granlund right now I'm thinking that reentering the draft instead of signing with the Wild in June is a good idea.  At least he'd have a chance at getting redrafted by a team that will actually be able to support the next coming of Gretzky.  Pens fans and management have to be wondering if Sid will ever play again at his pre-concussion level.  They'd be chomping at the bit to see Granlund in that insipid baby blue jersey.  Let the flaming by Sally begin in 3...2...1...   ;)                 

So, where does this leave me?  Pissed off, disappointed, discouraged, feeling the need to fly home just to kick some serious Wild ass and put Fire Ants in all of their breezers.  But after all the cursing at the tv, throwing of pillows, stomping all the way down the stairs and back up again with Buster in between each horribiy played period I love my team.  Because?? They're my chosen team and regardless of how craptastic they're playing I stick with them.   
Tina Turner would be proud.   



For Christ's sake, I couldn't even catch a break with double anthem night in Toronto.  Former Minnesota State-Mankato player Chad Brownlee, now a country singer, totally screwed up on O'Canada and sang way off key through the National Anthem.  As Matt Kassian would say on his twitter account: #shinslist.   

For my peeps back in Minnesota: how's winter treatin' ya this week, huh?  To all of you who sent texts, pictures and emails detailing how warm Minnesota winters have become since I moved away all those 2.5 months ago:  SUCKIT!!  I'm in shorts and tshirts for the rest of the week thanks to temps in the 70's.  Muwahahahahahahahahahah!!  Enjoy your 68 degree difference in temps while I'm enjoying Lenten Roses in bloom and tanning at the dog park. 
Evil Dee has spoken.  

Milk Carton

LOST - MINNESOTA WILD

Last seen in December 2011.  If found please return to Mike Yeo at Excel Energy Center. 

Wow - what can you say about a team that just checked out for the holidays in December and hasn't bothered to return to the ice since?  The issue with this team goes way beyond the injuries, although we've certainly got our share.  The real problem is these guys stopped playing and haven't found it within themselves to start up again.  It's not about the 'program' or the 'system' or the 'process', okay Mike??  You've worn those buzz words into the ground so don't even go there.  Kicking some serious hockey ass is required at this point.  Apparently it starts by scratching Setoguchi from the Wild vs Sharks game.  In a move that appears to be disciplinary in nature by Coach Yeo, Devin found himself in the pressbox instead of on the ice against his old team.  Evidently he missed a team meeting this morning and Yeo doesn't put up with that shit.  Post game presser is going to be VERY interesting.  Of course, Devin may have had a good reason?
  ****Coach Yeo states violation of team rule as reason for scratching Setoguchi.   

MATT CULLEN SKATING IN 1000TH GAME TONIGHT!
First Class guy all the way and we got to celebrate it with him in MInnesota.  He ends up being one of the stars of the game. 

Bouchard Out With Concussion
According to Russo - Bouchard will "speak" on Wednesday.  Anyone want to put money down that he's retiring?  His melon has had one too many bruises and quite frankly there's more to life than risking your long term health for the sake of playing a game.   

Side Note:  Loving the new NBCSports!  Okay, not much change in format from VS but still.  I'm hoping that by NBC stepping up to the plate with this move, more network NHL hockey games can't be far behind? 

1st Period   Wild 1, Sharks 1
In his 1000th game, Matt Cullen almost scored a goal.  He would have - if only he would have followed up on the rebound...just sayin'.  Cal Clutterbuck gets his 11th goal of the season and the goal horn sounds!  God, I miss being in the arena for that.  What a pretty pass from Wellman for the assist.  I just have to say it's soo weird to see Brent Burns in a uniform that isn't MN Wild in nature.  Mike Yeo not looking too confident during his in-game on the bench interview.  OMG - Wild actually got a shot on goal during a power play!  Holy Mother of Lord Stanley, Harding makes a MONSTER save against Joe Thornton!!  Bad turnover by Wild leading to the Shark's drive but seriously highlight reel save by Josh.  Wild follow that up with two consecutive penalties, giving the Sharks a 5-3 powerplay.  IDIOTS.  And the Wild lay down on the ice to allow the Sharks to score within seconds.  Undisciplined hockey - Wild are the poster team for it.  Russo wouldn't have any room for his laptop in the press box if Yeo sat all the players who aren't playing worth a crap.

Chuckleworthy
Dustin Penner out with a back injury thanks to Attack Of The Pancakes!  No, it's not a science fiction movie fit for Mystery Science Theater 3000.  He really hurt himself while reaching for the maple syrup.  Dustin has endured a very public lashing regarding his physical condition so the fact that he actually owned up to how he injured himself makes him a real man in my eyes.  

2nd Period   Wild 2, Sharks 1
Heately's first shift and he's actually playing hockey at both ends of the ice.  Perhaps message received?  Once again, refs letting opponents set up house in the blue paint without calling goalie interference.  Stand tall, Josh!  Swear to God, Nick Johnson is the ONLY DMan on the Wild to take the puck into the OZone himself.  Wild have attitude this period but not sure if it's the right kind.  They're on the verge of being pissy instead of gritty which could lead to stupid penalties.  As Vicki put it "wish Wild would get scorey instead of pissy".  Scorey, yep - I'm running with that one.  Refs working with eyes closed - can't seem to ever see the puck when Wild is banging away in front of the opponent's net.  Whistled down plays galore.  Call Me Homer. 
***Dear Brent Burns: I get that you're pissed off about being traded but do you have to be a one man wrecking ball on your former team??  Three Wild players hurt by Burns in three games - geez. 
Warren Peters, who doesn't really care about Brent Burns' feelings scores to put the Wild up 2-1.  The Wild continue to pressure Niemi at the goal mouth - Cullen clangs one off the post and then a flurry of players working the rebound to pop the puck out from under Niemi's pads.  Unfortunately, the play was whistled dead but Clutterbuck took on 3 Sharks players afterwards and he was very articulate on the bench...#pottymouth ;)  LOVE me some Josh Harding and his mini-me, Justin Falk defending our goal!  In a complete switch of allegience refs call a penalty on Sharks for boarding Clayton Stoner.  

And The Sportswriter Of The Year for Minnesota Is...
Michael Russo!  I dunno, kind of a no-brainer if you ask me but I'm a tad bit biased.  Also big shout out to Bob Kurtz and Tom Reid who were named the Sportscasters of the Year for Minnesota.  Those folks over at the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association (NSSA) really know their stuff.  Note to Craig Leipold: FIRE Terhar and Greenlay.    

3rd Period  Wild 4, Sharks 4 
Wild start the period with the 10 remaining seconds of "habitual momentum-killing" power play from the second period.  Quote supplied by Russo tweet along with this stat: 1 for 31 in power plays for last 12 games.  Sharks wanna rumble this period and the WIld need to be smart and walk away.  McIntyre takes a penalty but the Wild withstand the pressure while Clutterbuck gets a shot on goal - shorthanded, of course.  Nick Schultz standing tall in front of Josh and physically removing Sharks players from the crease.  That's new for him.  Wild may actually play 20 minutes of good hockey tonight if this keeps up.  And to prove it, Nick Johnson scores on a beautifully choreographed drive to the net.  Wild up 3-1.  Cullen getting more shots on goal tonight than he has all season, just a guess.  Sharks answer back with a goal to bring them within one goal.  I'm sending Fire Ants (it's a southern thing) to Vlasic's breezers.  Mikko has had just about enough of Thornton and is shouting Finnish swear words at him on his way to the bench, just a guess.  I never get tired of hearing that goal horn and just when I was starting to miss it Cullen drives to the net, gets stuffed but Wellman comes right into the mix and bangs the puck in off of Cullen's leg.  So there - Cully gets a goal in his 1000th game!!  And then the Wild fall apart - in EPIC fashion - by letting in 2 back to back unanswered goals in 22 seconds by the Sharks.  Heading to OT instead of hitting the showers with the first solid win in forever.  Have to say that 4th Sharks goal was classically beautiful, tic-tac-toe and into the net.  Harding feeling shame here.      

OT  Wild 4, Sharks 4
Harding looks like a junior league goalie and almost gives the game away within the first minute.  Wild defense letting the Sharks skate right in on Harding in the second minute of OT.  Three minutes in and the Wild and I don't think the Wild have a shot on goal or a real drive to the Shark's net.  

Shoot Out   Wild 5, Sharks 4 
Cullen - shoots a dribbler that actually gets drug/kicked into the net by Niemi!
Sharks - stoned by Hards!
Koivu - scores with authority - backhand to forehand!
Sharks - stoned by Hards!!
WILD WIN, WILD WIN, WILD WIN, WILD WIN!!!        
Jack Jablonski Links
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LOST - DEEICING BLOGGER

Lost her way for a while but found her way back to the blogosphere.  She won't go missing again. 

There was the move to Georgia, the getting settled into Georgia, the finding my way around Georgia, the making of new friends in Georgia, the coming down with H1N1 flu in Georgia.  It's kind of been one thing after another since getting here but I've been faithfully watching the Wild and having some great text conversations with folks back home for each game.  I promise I'm fixin' to blog regular-like again, whether y'all cotton to it or not.     

 

Southernspeak - Part One