It's Good To Be Home

Wild 1, Avalanche 0 

Yawner Of A Game
Tightly played game on both ends of the ice.  That's hockey talk for "as boring as watching paint dry."  The only thing worth getting worked up about for this game was how many cross checks and trips against the Wild didn't get called.  I had to walk away from my laptop a couple of times so that I wouldn't start screaming at the refs through it.  The Wild outshot the Avs in the first period and pretty much owned the game.  The second period saw the Wild getting outshot by the Avs 13 - 5 and not applying near enough pressure in the offensive zone.  Clutterbuck tried to wake the joint up with a hit that reverberated on my laptop!  Alas, still no score at the end of two periods.  Third period was a snooze fest until Justin Falk took the Avs' David Jones to town after he left his feet to check Justin in the face.  Finally, Setoguchi picks up a deflected Heatly shot and scores to give the Wild the 1-0 lead with 2:34 left in regulation.  I was just about to drift off to sleep...  
Sidenote - I switched over to Wild.com to see if they would run the postgame presser via KFAN.  I tuned in time to hear Bob Kurtz turning it over to Kevin Falness and then there was a 3 second delay.  The radio feed was then replaced with the sound of someone, presumably a Wild hockey player, skating on the ice and taking shots on goal.  Just the sound of the blades on the ice and the puck hitting goalie pads and rimming the boards.  Gotta tell ya, quite the comforting sound for me.  I need to get a copy of that on my iPod for sure. 

New Kid In Town
Wild signed Aeros defenseman Kris Fredheim to an NHL contract in order to have him play in Tuesday night's game.  Kris is another young disciple of Yeo's system in Houston so it should be one of those situations where the coach knows the player like the back of his hand.  Read Russo's Rant on how to properly pronounce Kris's last name for a good chuckle and an overview of the kind of player Kris is.  In a continuing trend/sign of how much faith Yeo has in his proteges from Houston: Kris logged 10:13 minutes of ice time in his first NHL game.  Congratulations to Fredheim on his NHL debut!

Too Many DMen On The Ice
Mike Lundin is on his way to the Aeros for a couple of games as a means to see if he's ready to go, finally, in the Wild lineup.  Russo is reporting that Lundin will play in the Friday and Sunday games for the Aeros.  Where Mike fits in once his stint in Houston is complete is part of the bigger question when it comes to the Wild's blue line.  At the start of the season it was widely known that the weakest link for the Wild was going to be the defense after having traded Brent Burns.  Turns out the rookie defensemen on the team took umbrage to that assessment and have made Yeo, Fletcher, the media and the fans eat their words. 
When the veteran blue liners went down with injuries the young guys were waiting in the wings to show us just how ready for the NHL they are.  Yeo has been singing the praises of Scandella, Falk, Spurgeon, Stoner and now Prosser.  It's got to have both Zanon and Zidlicky wondering where they fit in when they come off the injured list.  Zanon is in the last year of his contract and will likely be shopped as trade bait - perhaps a 3rd or 4th round pick?  Zidlicky on the other hand just plain SUCKS and I don't know what can be done with him in terms of return on investment. 

Milestone for Schultz
Nick played in his 700th game on Tuesday night and all of them have been as a member of the Wild.  He celebrated by taking a shot on goal and trying for his 26th goal of his career but alas, it wasn't to be.  Nick hasn't always been one of my favorite players, mostly due to his lack of preparation at the beginning of previous seasons.  This season, perhaps due to the Yeo Influence, there's been a solid change in his game.  It was great to see all the nice shout outs to Schultz via Twitter today.  Congratulations Nick, on your 700th game! 

Back and Forth
Casey Wellman has been called up and sent down more times than any other player this season so far.  Unfortunately for Wellman he's been relegated to making the popcorn in the press box since his role has been that of insurance player in case one of our regular guys needed to be scratched after pregame warmups.  Fortunately for Wellman he's racking up those frequent flier points.