What a great win by the Wizzy win tonite. They rolled in to United Center and beat the resurgent Chicago Blackhawks – who are the new darlings of the NHL – and avenged a 4-1 drubbing at the X a couple weeks ago. Final was 4-1, with 2 powerplay goals from Marek Zidlicky, one from Mikko Koivu, and an empty netter from Cal Clutterbuck. Niklas Backstrom was solid with 40 saves, a few of them were very timely. The Wild penalty kill was also very good, especially with 3 minutes left when Chicago pulled their goalie to get a 6 on 4 advantage. The Hawks didn’t get much opportunity as the Wild broke up multiple cross-ice passes with nice stickwork.

Jots

• James Sheppard played a pretty good game. He had a few good chances on ‘Hawks G Nikolai Khabibulin.
• Andrew Brunette had one of his better games of late, registering 2 assists – one of them a pretty no-look pass to Zidlicky on his 2nd PP goal. He should go knees-first into the boards more often.
• Brent Burns looked a little bit shaky at times. I remember a couple instances of “Burnsie whaddya doin” thru my mind. He’s still a stud tho.
• Marek Zidlicky has 8 goals on the season and they’re all on the powerplay.

Next
The Wild return to the X tomorrow nite to take on the LA Kings. They need to start following up nice games like tonite with wins, so it is a big game. LA continues to be a bad team; the Wizzy had better take care of bidness.