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With Hockey Day in Minnesota almost upon us, tonight’s game against the Dallas Stars will also appeal to the State of Hockey’s sense of history and appreciation of the game. Tonight the team will recognize the accomplishments of 1988 1st Overall selection Mike Modano, who earlier this season became the all-time American-born scorer in National Hockey League history passing up Minnesotan, Phil Housely. Housely, along with former North Stars’ General Manager Lou Nanne will be on hand for the celebration. For some Wild fans, its a chance to praise one of its former hometown stars on huge milestone, and for others its a bitter and even undeserved celebration for a player who was not so kind to Minnesota when the team left back in 1993. Modano also questioned whether NHL hockey could succeed in Minnesota, questioning the fans’ dedication over the fact they were not willing to pay what he thought were affordable ticket prices. What sort of reception with Modano recieve tonight in front of the 18,568 fans that have come to watch a critical game for the battle for Western Conference dominance. We shall see.
With the help of Lou Nanne sharing “Let’s Play Hockey” the game would start with a great pace. Both teams seemed to have jump, and both teams would get some great chances early. The Stars would narrowly miss on a great back door play early but a Wild defender got just enough to keep the puck from going right to the stick of a crashing Brendan Morrow preventing a sure goal. Minnesota would press an attack of its own and this pressure would yield a power play as Niklas Grossman tried to ease some of the pressure by lifting a puck out of the zone but instead through it into the crowd drawing a delay of game penalty. On the power play, Minnesota worked the puck well around the perimeter with quick passes, trying to set up one-time chances with the intent of taking advantage of the screening ability of Todd Fedoruk. Minnesota would create some good chances, the best one coming of a blast by Mikko Koivu, but were not able to beat Mike Smith, who got the assignment between the pipes as Marty Turco was back in Dallas with an injury. A weak call on Aaron Voros for a clean hit he put on Virginia, Minnesota-native Matt Niskanen would negate the man-advantage. The Stars would try to take advantage of the open ice but Minnesota as Grossman’s penalty would expire Trevor Daley would find the defenseman on a stretch pass and he’d race in on a breakaway. Luckily for Minnesota, Niklas Backstrom was able to make the save, and the Wild would get the big early penalty kill. The State of Hockey would counter with some scoring chances; with some nice down low plays by Mikko Koivu to fellow Wild forwards Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Eric Belanger but Smith was able to make the saves. Belanger would have another grand chance as he’d skate toward the Stars’ crease and Smith would move out and try to challenge and the speedy French Canadian would move behind and around the net to try the wrap but couldn’t make it work. Perhaps still a bit angry over his hit on Niskanen earlier in the period, Dallas’ tough guy Krys Barch decided to drop the gloves with Aaron Voros. It was a spirited fight, with both fighters exchanging good right handed bombs at one another. Voros withstood a pretty good start by Barch to eventually start trading some better punches before eventually both fighers would twist down the ice still flailing away at one anther. Yet, Voros would commit some no-no’s in terms of “the Code” as he’d fire a few punches after the officials had moved in to break it up and the officials would give Voros a 10-minute misconduct for instigating. The Wild would re-establish its pressure towards the latter half of the period, and some close in chances would almost break the stalemate as Mike Smith seemed to be fighting the puck a bit. Despite the team’s best efforts the game would remain knotted at 0-0 going into the 2nd.
In the 2nd period, penalties would really become the story of the game. Minnesota would be the beneficiaries of the first penalty as Dallas defenseman former Vancouver Giant Mark Fistric would end up in the box for cross checking. On the man advantage the Wild would demonstrate some great puck movement, but Smith and the Dallas penalty kill was able to keep Minnesota off the board. The officials would give the Stars a plethora of big opportunities for the rest of the period. Brent Burns would earn a terribly weak cross-checking call as a Stars forward would bump into the Wild defenseman and fall down giving Dallas a power play. About 20 seconds into the Dallas power play. A fairly marginal slashing call on Pavol Demitra, to stop a charging Mike Modano would give Dallas a power play, yet the call was made giving the former North Stars a long 5-on-3. Minnesota’s penalty killers did a great job of keeping their sticks active and denying the Stars from having wide open chances, even when they tried the quick bang-bang plays down low the Wild’s penalty killers were able to disrupt those passes. Fairly soon after the big kill, the Stars would get another big power play when Matt Foy was given a double-minor for high sticking. Again Minnesota’s penalty killers stood tall, making it very difficult for the Stars to generate many shots on Niklas Backstrom. Even when Stephane Veilleux lost his stick, which he stayed on the ice almost a full minute before Minnesota was able to kill the rest of the penalty off. Just as Minnesota killed off the penalty Marian Gaborik would find some space behind the Dallas defense and he’d race in for a breakaway but he was unable to control the bouncing puck enough to get a shot on Smith. Minnesota would swarm around the Dallas net, creating a bunch of good shots but it could not navigate the forest of legs to find itself behind the Stars goalie and the period would end with the teams still tied 0-0.
In the 3rd period, one may have thought the Wild were going to carry the play at the start of this period. Yet it was Dallas who would be flying all over the ice early on. Minnesota seemed to be half asleep as the Stars were moving about the Wild zone with little difficulty and creating scoring chances early. The Wild would try to counter with a nice rush by its top line, and nearly took the lead as a brilliant saucer pass by Pavol Demitra to Marian Gaborik and he’d shoot the puck right into Mike Smith who was moving towards the opposite post and this missed chance would be rather painful. Right off the rebound, the Stars would counterattack and Niklas Hagman would walk right around pylon-esque Martin Skoula and then deftly wrap a shot around Backstrom to put Dallas up 1-0. Minnesota would try to rally back, and it was some of its grinders that would create some nice chances down low, and when they were able to get their sticks on the puck to get a shot Smith was able to make the save, or the pass wouldn’t connect. Minnesota was not getting the marginal calls Dallas was given so liberally in the 2nd period. Dallas, feeling the pressure kept icing the puck repeatedly during the last four minutes of the game. The Stars were hooking and holding but it didn’t seem to matter as the Wild passed up chances to shoot and never really challenged Smith all that much in the waning minutes to lose 1-0 to Dallas.
The loss hurts considering how now the Wild have squandered the space the team had gained from its play in the previous 10 games. Two home losses in a row sting. One really could not blame Niklas Backstrom who gave up just one goal on 26 shots. Backstrom gave the Wild every chance to win, but the team failed to capitalize on its opportunities.
Minnesota did not receive the opportunities on the power play the Stars did but they need to find away to get a goal in games like this. The team needed to get a victory tonight to re-establish its confidence that was shaken after the overtime loss to Detroit. A 1-0 loss tonight only begs more questions about the direction of this team. Saturday the Wild take on a struggling Islanders team, and it has to be considered a must-win. Afterall its Hockey Day in Minnesota, it needs to make the home state proud.
Wild Notes:
~ Wild roster tonight was as follows: Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra, Brian Rolston, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Eric Belanger, Mikko Koivu, Todd Fedoruk, James Sheppard, Stephane Veilleux, Branko Radivojevic, Matt Foy, Kim Johnsson, Brent Burns, Nick Schultz, Keith Carney, Martin Skoula, Kurtis Foster, Josh Harding backed up Niklas Backstrom. Petteri Nummelin and Mark Parrish were the healthy scratches. Derek Boogaard and Sean Hill are out with injuries.
~ The Wild 3 Stars of the Game as selected by Let’s Play Hockey were: 1st Star Mike Smith, 2nd Star Niklas Backstrom, 3rd Star Brent Burns
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 9:41 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.