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Rivalries, its something the National Hockey League has wanted to promote in effort to step up the intensity in regular season play. One natural rivalry is between the Minnesota Wild and the Columbus Blue Jackets. While both teams entered the league in 2000, the directions the franchises have taken since their inception have been significantly different. The Wild have had a fair amount of success while the Blue Jackets have dwelled in mediocrity and never really close to post-season contention. In fact the closest Columbus has ever been to making the playoffs was back in their first season back in 2000-01 when they finished 19 points out of playoff picture. The result of this long period of unfulfilled dreams has been a fairly annoyed fanbase, leaving the team struggling to fill the seats at Nationwide Arena. Yet tonight, the arena would be sold out (another game where the Wild have come to town drawing a sellout from a team that seldom does, so much for the “boring” hockey that is ruining the game theory, eh) to watch their Blue Jackets hopefully spank the visiting Wild. Would these fans leave happy?
Confidence, its something that could be seen from the drop of the puck. The Wild took control right from the start, skating with speed as the Blue Jackets were giving Minnesota more space than perhaps they should have. Minnesota’s speed would give the Blue Jackets some early headaches, and Columbus defenseman Jan Hejda would earn a minor for interference just 34 seconds into the game. On the man advantage the Wild would move the puck well, but at times some small mental lapses would cost the team some early scoring chances, and while defending a good shorthanded rush by the Blue Jackets’ Manny Malholtra, Brent Burns would take a tripping penalty to negate the early power play. Minnesota’s penalty kill was up to the task of keeping Columbus off the scoreboard. A few minutes later, off a nice rush, Brian Rolston would unload a rocket that Fredrik Norrena would hold onto. The Wild seemed calm and collected and its patience would pay off as Mikko Koivu would win a faceoff and slide the puck back to Kurtis Foster who side stepped Columbus’ Michael Peca and flung a wrist shot that Norrena clearly did not see until it was in the back of the net to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead. Columbus would try to respond, as Nikolai Zherdev would use a nice toe-drag move to get open enough for a wrister, but Niklas Backstrom would come up with the big save. Minnesota would also try to add to its lead when the Wild would start elevating their play along the boards and this would lead to a nice chance from the point by Nick Schultz that Norrena would stop but none of his defenseman were able to track down the rebound and Brian Rolston would take the puck and spin and fire a blast that the Finnish goalie managed to hold onto to keep the game 1-0 going into the 2nd.
In the 2nd, perhaps taking a page out of the State of Hockey’s playbook, the Blue Jackets started the period trying to win the battles down low along the boards to create offense. It would pay off a bit under 4 minutes in, as promising youngster Derrick Brassard would take a loose puck and skate out underneath the right faceoff circle before rifiling a wicked wrister by Backstrom to tie the game 1-1. It was Brassard’s 1st NHL goal. With the 18,500+ in attendance now roaring, the Wild would not waste much time to silence them. An outstanding individual shift by Pierre-Marc Bouchard who demonstrated all of his tremendous shiftiness stickhandling around Blue Jacket defenders before a small give-and-go play where Bouchard would pass back to Brian Rolston who one-timed it home to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead. About 5 minutes later, Minnesota would strike again as Pavol Demitra would forward a pass to Todd Fedoruk and he’d quickly give a perfect cross-ice saucer pass to a crashing Marian Gaborik who made no mistake burying the puck behind Norrena to lift the Wild to a 3-1 lead. Who says Todd Fedoruk was brought here to be just another pair of knuckles for our team? Fedoruk has been oustanding on a line with Demitra and Gaborik, and has demonstrated great versatility and surprising creativity. The Wild would add another goal, as Minnesota’s top line featuring the dynamic Slovakian duo of Demitra and Gaborik would team up to light the lamp yet again. The Blue Jackets would inexplicably give the two forwards a lot of space and they would put on a clinic giving small quick passes before Gaborik would find himself alone in the slot to beat Norrena with a beautiful wrister to give Minnesota a 4-1 lead. The sellout crowd was now booing their hometown team as they seemed to have given up to the superior Minnesota squad. Minnesota sustained this offensive pressure, as they continued to pepper Norrena with shots, even some from close-range by Mark Parrish. Minnesota was skating well and making tape-to-tape passes while the Blue Jackets seemed to be just standing still, but Columbus had to feel it could’ve been much worse despite trailing by three, 4-1 going into the 3rd period.
In the 3rd, the Wild would go into lockdown mode as they carry an undefeated record (23-0) when leading after the 2nd period. Predictably the Blue Jackets would do their best to try to change that as they simply tried to put pucks on net, as Jared Boll would tee up a blast that Backstrom would stop and Columbus would try to cash in on the rebound. Minnesota’s defense did a good job at denying the Blue Jackets of those rebound chances, and despite some good moves by Rick Nash and Nikolai Zherdev they were not able to capitalize. Niklas Backstrom was excellent, as he would demonstrate excellent positioning squaring himself to the shooter and making these late-game saves look rather easy. The Blue Jackets best chance came off a rebound chance by Dan Fritsche whose shot from the slot whistled high over the net. With another long serenade of boo’s from the rare sellout crowd, the Wild would skate away with a 4-1 victory.
While most of the Blue Jackets’ chances were from long range, Niklas Backstrom had a strong game making 33 saves to earn his 20th win of the season. Minnesota has to feel incredibly confident after they had a great game scoring four times at even strength. The Wild’s top offensive players are now producing and Minnesota are winning games with dominant play.
The win keeps Minnesota atop the Northwest Division with 63 points and in 3rd place in the Western Conference. The Wild will have a very tough challenge awaiting them on Tuesday at home against the Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings are arguably the best team in the league, and have always been a extremely tough opponent for the Wild. A win over Detroit could give an already confident team another big boost of momentum as we enter the homestretch towards the playoffs.
Wild Notes:
~ The Wild roster tonight was as follows: Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra, Brian Rolston, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Mikko Koviu, Mark Parrish, Todd Fedoruk, James Sheppard, Stephane Veilleux, Branko Radivojevic, Aaron Voros, Eric Belanger, Nick Schultz, Kim Johnsson, Brent Burns, Martin Skoula, Keith Carney, Kurtis Foster and Josh Harding backed up Niklas Backstrom. Matt Foy, Derek Boogaard, and Petteri Nummelin were the healthy scratches. Sean Hill is still out of the lineup with a leg injury.
~ The 3 Stars of the Game were: 1st Star Marian Gaborik, 2nd Star Niklas Backstrom, 3rd Star Pavol Demitra
~ The Minnesota Golden Gopher Men’s Hockey team had an ugly game with North Dakota. While that may not surprise anyone; the Gophers lost game 1 played on Friday night, 2-1 in overtime on an incredible leaping goal by Evan Tropp. In game 2 tempers would flare early and often with a number of ugly physical altercations; as the game would end in a 1-1 tie. Scoring still seems to be the biggest challenge for the Gophers, managing to score just 2 times in the two games. One player who had a strong weekend was Freshman Goaltender, former Rochester Century star Alex Kangas who has made a very strong case to be the permanent #1 goaltender over junior Jeff Frazee.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 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: Wild earn 30th win of the season with strong peformance in 4-1 road win over Columbus