The Wild once again put a damper on any kind of fan enthusiasm they may have generated with Monday’s win over Chicago by losing to the 2nd-to-last-place LA Kings, 5-2 Tuesday nite. The Wild never held a lead in this one, and save for a 1-1 tie didn’t much show up at all. The lone bright spot was Marek Zidlicky’s 9th goal of the season – again on the powerplay – that was almost a carbon copy of the goal he scored v. Chicago off a beauty pass from Andrew Brunette behind the goal. This was one of those games that had a loser vibe early and it stuck.

Fake Midway Point
The Wild is now off until Tuesday in observance of the All-Star break. With 36 games remaining, they are in the 9th spot in the Western Conference, 1 point out of a playoff spot. This is a team that needs to string together some wins, and it will be tough coming out of the break if they can’t even beat LA. They do play 9 out of their next 13 games at home, so by the end of February we will probably know if they’re contenders or pretenders – at least to make the playoffs if nothing more.

Return of Old Man Antagonist
Claude Lemieux, the 43-year old ultimate antagonizer (or dirty hockey player depending on your point of view) returned to NHL action tonite for the San Jose Sharks. Think about it…he was drafted in 1983. At the time of this post the Sharks game with Vancouver was in the 3rd period with about 14 minutes to go, and Lemieux had 6:15 of ice time. 2 things I don’t get…

• What can Claude Lemieux possibly have left in the tank?
• What do the Sharks think he is going to add to their team?

Thanks for that, Paul
A friend of mine who lives in MN but is a Red Wings fan was kind enough to send me another Pavel Datsyuk highlight from a recent shootout. I’m not sure what' he’s trying to prove…the Wild once made a nice move in a shootout before too. Also, Datsyuk always uses the same move…try something different!

But thanks for thinking of me Paul…and for everyone else, here’s the goal…

Next
I’ll have some thoughts on the Skills Competition and the All-Star Game over the weekend.