Public Death Of A Career, Death Of A Hockey Game

Wild 4, Preds 5

 Marek Meltdown

I'm guessing if Zhidlicky could change just one thing in his whole life it would be that he kept skating towards the locker room after the morning skate on Tuesday and never even looked in Michael Russo's direction.  That way Marek wouldn't have had the uncomfortable discussion with Chuck Fletcher after Russo posted his temper tantrum on the blog for the whole hockey world to read.  Marek also wouldn't be facing another uncomfortable discussion with his coach, Mike Yeo, on Wednesday.  If Marek had just kept his mouth shut he wouldn't be facing team mates in the locker room who will likely have nothing good to say to him or about him.  And what do you suppose Marek's wife and family are saying right about now?  "Gee, honey - by all means, bite the hand that feeds you, and us.  By all means, make it impossible to get traded to another NHL team thereby ending our time here in America.  Yep, back to Europe, that's where we want to go." 

My advice to Zhidlicky: put the rest of your salary from the Wild in the bank cuz you've just killed your career. 

You will not be in the NHL at the start of next season.  IDIOT.

My advice to the other players benched on a regular basis - like Gander Mountain says: Don't Be That Guy. 

Turtleneck Steps Up

 As if to say he's tired of being called out by the local media and national media for not producing, Dany Heatley has stepped up his game lately.  Two goals in the first period for the Wild, his first two goal game for the Wild, and the team was off to a great start.  Even his turtleneck was busy, tweeting in between scoring goals!  I will never be a fan of Dany, but I do give credit where it's due and he deserves the praise for his play as of late.  Russo jinxed Dany's chances of getting the Turtle Trick by tweeting this: "Rinne just swiped Heatley's hat-trick goal right out of the air. he's got 35:21 left to get the Wild's 16th trick in team history."  Heatley did get an assist on Brodziak's goal in the 3rd period so that's a 3 point game at least ;) 

Got Your Back

The Wild are not known for standing up for their goalies this season and just as I was mentioning that to a couple of folks Prosser, Brodziak, Johnson (F'g All Star 2.0) and Falk all take exception to Hornqvist pushing Hards back into his cage.  This team needs to view video of this before every period.  It's bad enough that we score the least amount of goals in the whole NHL, but on top of that other teams just steamroll our goalies without repercussions.

Speaking of Goalies

Coach Yeo has thrown down the gauntlet for Hards and Backstrom by announcing publicly that the number one goalie job is on the line.  Lord Stanley, it's about fricking time  somebody tells Backstrom he's got serious consistency issues.  And Josh, don't be thinking you're all that and the bag of chips.  You need to show the other teams in the NHL that you're worth a boatload (2nd line scorer and a high draft pick) in order to get you where you want to be next season.  That butterfly split you did in the third trying to make the save on Yip was good goalie porn.  Too bad it was a goal for the Preds.  Too bad you gave up two more goals 21 seconds apart later in the third period.  Too bad you gave up the winning goal with 20 seconds left in the third.  I guess that number one goalie job isn't for you. 

Third Period Meltdown

As the Wild are known to do they fell apart in the third after taking a 4-2 lead. It didn't help that after Kyle Brodziak scored the Wild's 4th goal the team just skated around watching the Preds score on Josh like he wasn't even there.  The crowd was not happy and I'm surprised security wasn't called in to escort the Wild off the ice for their own protection. 

Epic Fail In Advertising

Dear JCPenny,

I will never shop at your stores for as long as I live.  Your obnoxious commercial that you paid to run incessantly on every channel of my digital premium package has ensured that I will avoid your wares like the plague.  30 seconds straight of someone screaming their lungs out doesn't make me want to buy what you're selling.  I don't care if you're giving your shit away for free.