All Sport Live

| |

Well, you have to start somewhere and its no different in the State of Hockey as the Minnesota Wild got their 2007-08 regular season started in their home opener against the Chicago Blackhawks.  While it may have not been the dominating game the team had hoped for, in fact the play was downright sloppy at times, it still managed to come away with win.  You can bet though, with some of the dangerous plays that occurred especially during the 3rd period this team is far more likely earned the team a stern lecture rather than praise from Wild Head Coach Jacques Lemaire.

In front of another sellout crowd at the Xcel Energy Centre, the Wild seemed a bit “tired” or “sleepy” to say the least.  The Blackhawks pressed the attack right from the drop of the puck, and had the Wild on their heels.   The result of Chicago seeming to have their “legs” with them and the Wild clearly without them was Minnesota struggling to score while clearly hanging on as Chicago generated most of the quality scoring chances.  This lack of speed would cost the Wild when former Philadelphia Flyer Patrick Sharp would get behind the Wild’s defense and he’d race in all alone on the breakaway, only to be denied by a great sprawling save by Niklas Backstrom.  Backstrom, had to have felt rather alone on the ice as the Wild were giving up all kinds of chances in the first; including big blasts from the point by Chicago’s Magnus Johnansson.  Despite the slow start, and thanks to great goaltending of Niklas Backstrom, the game would still be knotted at 0-0.

Fairly early in the 2nd period it would be “round 2″ so to speak between Blackhawks young enforcer David Koci and Minnesota’s Derek Boogaard.  I say “round 2″ because both of them had a fairly good fight in their last pre-season game that was played on Monday.  “Round 2″ was another great exhibition between two heavyweights.  Koci would fire a few quick lefts before latching on near the collar area of the new RBK jerseys (which are very lousy for enforcers I might add) and seemed to get the jump on the “Boogeyman”, but undaunted Boogaard would stay with it and start launching big right hands that mostly hit Koci’s helmet.  It was a spirited fight as both men tried to trade bombs but it was clear that Koci’s strategy was to try to keep Boogaard’s body as close to him as possible so he could not really unleash the big haymakers.  Boogaard tried to counter that with a few uppercuts, narrowly missing his first attempt and then landing a nice one that saw him regain control of the fight.  It was a great tilt that probably will be called a draw, but one that I think Boogaard will learn from meaning he’ll want to prevent a guy from grabbing the collar area of the jersey as it really gives that fighter a great advantage.  With the new “easy tear” RBK jerseys its also probably the only place on the new sweaters that really allow a fighter to gain leverage so they can really start throwing bombs at your opponent.  The Wild seemed to skate a little better in the 2nd, but still far from what they’re capable of.  This eased some of the pressure that was on Niklas Backstrom, and the Wild started to generate some scoring chances of their own.  About a minute after the Koci / Boogaard throwdown, Brian Rolston would move the puck into the offensive zone and slide an easy pass to Eric Belanger who would take the puck below the right circle before firing a nice centering pass to Pierre-Marc Bouchard who roofed a shot over Nikolai Khabiboulin to give the Wild a 1-0 lead.  For a brief moment the State of Hockey thought it had a 2-0 lead when Stephane Veilleux fired a wrist shot that seemed to go in and out, but upon review it was easy to see the puck in fact did not go in and merely hit the crossbar instead.  The near goal though seemed to re-awaken the Blackhawks and they started to counter attack but again Backstrom was solid; even bailing his team out mid-way through the period when they gave Chicago a 5-on-3 power play.  Minnesota would almost add to their lead late in the 2nd, when Pierre-Marc Bouchard would thread a pass to Brian Rolston who was waiting on the doorstep only to see his quick wrist shot kicked aside by a very sharp Nikolai Khabiboulin keeping the game at just a 1-0 Wild advantage.

In the 3rd the Wild seemed to regress and start to sit on their heels more.  The only notable scoring chance came when Eric Belanger stole the puck in the neutral zone and moved in on a breakaway only to be denied by Khabiboulin.  Like any sport; when one team eases their pressure the opposition becomes more bold and goes on the attack.  A classic example of this, was when former Vancouver Canuck, Brent Sopel gave a great long pass to Rene Bourque who got behind the Wild defense and moved in on a breakaway.  Bourque, a go-to scorer in his days with the Wisconsin Badgers raced in and fired a wrist shot that whistled just Wild of Backstrom, which preserved the Wild’s 1-0 lead.  Apart from the numerous amount of physical errors the Wild seemed to be making with the puck, there were plenty of mental errors to go along with it including one time where the Wild failed to get a centreman to the faceoff dot and so the official would drop the puck to an unopposed Blackhawks forward.  As if the embarassment of missing the faceoff wasn’t enough for the next 15 seconds the Wild’s bench seemed confused as to who should go out on the shift and the Blackhawks almost enjoyed a brief power play of the Wild’s own making.  The Blackhawks continued to generate chances but Backstrom continued to come up with the big saves.  Backstrom’s proclivity to make saves started to frustrate the Blackhawks when Martin Havlat followed up a shot by trying to shove the goaltender, and predictably a frakas ensued.  It was Havlat that would get the worst of it as Wild players and Blackhawks players exchanged some punches along with a great deal of pushing and shoving, and in that melee it was the talented Czech winger that would leave for the lockeroom clearly in pain.  Minnesota would fend off a furious last second assault by Chicago, to get a 1-0 victory.  Notice I did not say earn. 

Niklas Backstrom was clearly the MVP of the game, and you could definately make a strong argument that he stole the game with his 27 saves for his first shutout of the season.  Without Backstrom this game could’ve actually been pretty ugly for the sluggish way the Wild played.  Nikolai Khabiboulin had a strong game for the Blackhawks allowing just Bouchard’s goal on 24 shots faced.  The Wild will no doubt have to improve markedly if it expects to go on an early winning run like it did last season.       

After the game, it was very obvious that Wild Head Coach Jacques Lemaire was not all that happy with last night’s performance, probably best stated when he told wild.com, “I don’t want anymore games like that, I’m 62. I’ll be 75 soon!”  The 3rd period especially saw particularly shotty defensive play where Minnesota defenders were scrambling about in their own zone, and seemed to have great difficulty clearing pucks.  Lemaire also commented in the post-game press conference about the questionable play of the Wild’s blueline, “My god, it was like the first time in the NHL out there, they turned over the puck so many times they would’ve run out of ink if they were writing it.”  No question the Wild will have to play much better (especially Minnesota’s defenseman), and have more “legs” than they had against Chicago in their Saturday night tilt agianst the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

Wild Notes:

~ The roster for the Minnesota Wild tonight was as follows; Mikko Koivu, Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra, Brian Rolston, Eric Belanger, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Branko Radivojevic, Stephane Veilleux, Derek Boogaard, Wes Walz, Mark Parrish, Dominic Moore, Kim Johnsson, Keith Carney, Nick Schultz, Brent Burns, Petteri Nummelin, Martin Skoula and Josh Harding backed up Niklas Backstrom.  Healthy scratches for this evening was Matt Foy, and the newly signed James Sheppard.

~ The 3 Stars of the game as selected by Let’s Play Hockey: 1st Star Niklas Backstrom, 2nd Star Nikolai Khabiboulin, 3rd Star Pierre-Marc Bouchard.  If there could’ve been a honorable mention, it should go to Eric Belanger who was one of the few Wild players to exhibit any jump in there skates and he seemed right at home playing on the 2nd line. 

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under 2007-08 Game Reports & Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: mvn.com

Bookmark it: