I was looking forward to watching tonight's game v. Dallas Stars. I was ready to get back into Wild hockey after the holiday break. I was excited to watch Matt Niskanen for Dallas, who played for my college team, the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs. That said, I had a bad feeling going into the game. Dallas is playing well of late - they lead the Pacific Division. The Wild were just beaten soundly by the Red Wings. Overall I had bad vibes. Apparently I'm of the Nostradamus ilk.
The Wild gave up 8 goals tonight in an 8-3 loss. The Stars played a good game, but they don't have the offensive firepower to score 8 goals. We were lucky to be in the game after the first two periods, as the Wild answered the first Stars goals quickly, but were outplayed in my opinion throughout. Down only 4-3 going into the 3rd there was a chance, but an inabiltity to capitalize on the power play and Dallas scoring 4 unanswered goals, really just set the game to where it should have been early on. I became a tish disinterrested, and I actually felt it necessary to flip over to the Wolves game on NBA TV, In that 5-minute stretch I missed Dallas' 7th goal, but luckily I saw their 8th. That really completed me.
There were a couple positives...
- Pavel Demitra remembered he can actually shoot instead of passing to Gabby, and sometimes when you shoot it goes in.
- In the 2nd period I started reading Lou Nanne's North Stars memories book that my wife gave me for Christmas. Very good read so far. I'll post more on this in the future.
- Arron Voros continued his inspired play.
Here's hopin for a more positive post tomorrow after Wild v. Coyotes!
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*SO* much Skoula hate! Jacque really likes him, so I go with his "great hockey mind".
ReplyDeleteSkoula plays like crap day in and day out. I would be willing to believe that the defence got significantly worse with Skoula's arrival.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure what to say other than this was the worst game all season. Well, maybe the Detroit game right before Christmas can rival it.
ReplyDeleteEither way, if the Wild are going to compete for the Northwest Division title this season can have a shot at 100 points again is if they get back to basics defensively. They are simply much better than what the showed last night. I don't have a record book in front of me, but I don't remember the Wild ever allowing 8 goals in a game.
Dallas isn't as good as people think, yet they're on a roll right now. They weren't supposed to be a scoring team this year as experts said. Yet they scored eight last night. Minnesota will just have to get revenge next time they meet.
Alright, time to inject some Dallas love here. I was at this game, and when I first sat down and realized I could see Ralph and Razor (our tv announcers whom I hope to replace some day) I never would have thought the game would end this way. I blame it on the goaltending. Im guessing it was your backup, but either way he didnt play well and gave up some bad rebounds and didnt recover well. That being said, Im not really sure whats up with the Stars. Our line of Morrow-Miettinen-Riberio is tearing people up and somehow our lack of two great players, Boucher and Lehtinin, hasn't affected our play. Im not looking forward to the next time our two teams meet though...the blood is in the water.
ReplyDeleteGreat take Matt. Strangis and Razor are in trouble!
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