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History tells us that the Wild had lots to fear going in tonight’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It would tell us the chances tonight, of Minnesota pulling out a victory were somewhere in the realm of slim to none with a leaning towards the latter. On a night where the Blue Jackets honored one of their originals, David Vyborny (who is out of the lineup with a hip injury) for playing 500 games for Ohio’s capitol city, it did not seem very optimistic for the State of Hockey tonight. As the Wild had just one win against the Blue Jackets when playing them at their home, Nationwide Arena. That win came all the way back in 2002! Would that tradition continue tonight?
The Wild were skating with much more gusto than the had the previous night against the Detroit Red Wings. While the Wild had more purpose in their skating, it was mainly represented by Minnesota playing a very tight checking, defensively responsible game. Under the guidance of Columbus Head Coach Ken Hitchcock, the Blue Jackets were more than happy to play that passive neutral zone trap as well. The Wild would demonstrate great patience, but that should not be confused with the team playing in a laid back manner, as Minnesota was winning many of the races to the loose pucks early. The Wild would get the critical first goal just past the halfway point of the period when Marian Gaborik would give a nice pass up to Pavol Demitra who would deliver a great cross-ice pass towards the crease where Aaron Voros tap in a shot by Pascal Leclaire to give Minnesota a huge 1-0 lead. Some Wild fans questioned whether it was good keeping Voros on the top line with Gaborik and Demitra, but it is undeniable how his hard work creates chances, as well as his play along the boards seems to mesh well with two Slovaks. The goal lifted a big weight off the Wild’s shoulders, as it had to have felt some pressure after their inability to score against Detroit Friday night and Minnesota skated confidently into the 2nd carrying a 1-0 lead.
The Columbus Blue Jackets would start the 2nd with better jump, and they would get an early lift just 52 seconds in when Nikolai Zherdev would light the lamp on a wicked snap shot that beat Niklas Backstrom off a great pass by Jason Chimera. The Wild would weather a slight push by the Blue Jackets to get the go-ahead goal, but Minnesota would counter attack and their pressure would frustrate the sluggish Columbus squad. The Wild’s grinding line of Derek Boogaard, Mark Parrish would demonstrate some good aggressiveness off the rush, and Parrish would fire a shot that would trickle in behind Leclaire as Boogaard would literally crash the net, but upon review the goal was waived off. Minnesota seemed to simply have much more jump its skates, and perhaps feeling momentum was slipping away from his team, also perhaps feeling a need to avenge Jiri Novotny for a devastating hit Aaron Voros had given him during the last time these two teams faced each other, Jared Boll decided to drop the gloves with the Wild’s gritty forward. Boll was able to keep Voros at bey with his left arm as he prepared himself to throw right hands, while Voros desperately tried to reach to land punches on Boll; it was not a very decisive fight, but it got the not-quite sold out crowd going again. The Wild would continue to control the pace, with solid defensive play and great puck control to carry the momentum going into the 3rd period despite the tie 1-1 score.
In the 3rd period, the Minnesota Wild would start the period with some excellent jump and its great effort would pay off in an early goal, albeit a lucky one. Pierre-Marc Bouchard would win a great battle along the boards before finding Brian Rolston with a pass and the Flint, Michigan-native would turn and wind up and blast a slapper that would deflect off a Blue Jackets’ defender and by Leclaire to put the Wild up 2-1. The Blue Jackets would show some desperation as they tried to open up their offense to get the equalizer but the Wild were patient and did an excellent job at disrupting Columbus’ passing and shooting lanes. Niklas Backstrom was sharp in the final seconds making great saves on chances by Rick Nash, Dan Fristche and Ron Hainsey. Kim Johnsson would play strong in the final minutes, in battles along the boards in big clearing attempts to relieve pressure in the Wild’s offensive zone and the State of Hockey would skate away with a well-played 2-1 victory.
Niklas Backstrom was outstanding for the State of Hockey, making 31 saves to earn his 13th win of the season. Minnesota seemed surprised they managed to eek out a victory, as Wild Head Coach Jacques Lemaire would say, “It’s been a long time. We don’t win here too often, they have a team pretty much like us. They play hard and every game is a close game.” Yet if you talked with some of the other Wild players, it was more about redemption in the face of two poor performances more than anything else, when Mark Parrish said, “We just came out flat and didn’t show any signs of life last night, obviously, we talked about it in here and wanted to come out to prove that we are willing to work hard.” I think I am echoing a lot of Wild fans, when reacting to Parrish’s comment, ‘its about time’ we see some more effort.
After the game, the Blue Jackets were full of excuses as to how they managed to lose to the Wild, including those coming from Head Coach Ken Hitchcock when he said, “tonight we played about 12 minutes of the way we have to play – that’s what happens when you put skill ahead of work.” The Wild have been through that alot this season, so it is a nice surprise to have the other team have an off-night. Yet, Minnesota played much better defensively making it tough for the Blue Jackets to create many prime chances on Niklas Backstrom.
Minnesota will then head west to San Jose for a game on Tuesday. The Sharks have been rather inconsistent this season, but still have a very potent top 3 forwards in Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Milan Michalek. The Wild have to feel like they got a rather big and ugly monkey off of its back with tonight’s win in Columbus, just their 2nd win at Nationwide in the teams’ existence. They will have to play strong and physical and smart like they did tonight to have success against San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles.
Wild Notes:
~ Wild lineup tonight is as follows: Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra, Brian Rolston, Eric Belanger, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Dominic Moore, Aaron Voros, Mark Parrish, Todd Fedoruk, Stephane Veilleux, Branko Radivojevic, Derek Boogaard, James Sheppard, Kim Johnsson, Brent Burns, Martin Skoula, Sean Hill, Kurtis Foster, and Josh Harding backed up Niklas Backstrom. Matt Foy and Keith Carney were healthy scratches. Petteri Nummelin, Mikko Koivu were out of the lineup due to injuries.
~ The 3 Stars of the Game are:Â 1st Star Pierre-Marc Bouchard, 2nd Star Nikolai Zherdev, 3rd Star Brian Rolston
~ The State of Hockey News would like to congratulate the Houston Aeros on earning two solid road wins (2-1 and 4-3 respectively) over the Manitoba Moose (formerly the Minnesota Moose of the IHL) on back-to-back nights. The Aeros are now two games above .500, and Head Coach Kevin Constantine seems to have them playing his system well now. Wild prospects Benoit Pouliot had two assists, and Cal Clutterbuck lit the lamp in tonight’s hard fought victory in Winnipeg.
~ The Minnesota Golden Gophers got a big victory tonight, 4-3 at “the Ralph” splitting their series against their arch rival. New Jersey Devils’ draft pick, Mike Hoeffel came up big with two goals to lead the way for Minnesota’s “Pride on Ice.”
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 11:32 pm 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: Rolston’s 3rd period tally would help Wild earn rare road win in Columbus, 2-1
