How do you mark your 400th consecutive sell-out? If you're a fan of the Minnesota Wild, you had to be hoping that they'd mark it with a win, continuing their season of dominance over the Calgary Flames, and keeping themselves in the running to surprise everyone with a playoff berth.
Reality can be a tough pill to swallow, as none of those things happened.
The Wild found itself chasing almost from the start of the game, and leave it to Wild-killer Jerome Iginla to step up after not scoring in ten games against Minnesota. While the Wild might still have an outside shot at the playoffs, they certainly aren't making it any easier on themselves, and time is definitely running short. Coming out of the Olympics, Minnesota looked poised to make a push, and possibly even put a scare into some of the top teams. However, after easily handling Calgary while visiting Canada, the Wild fell to a lackluster performance against Edmonton, and just couldn't overcome an early hole from the Flames.
Game pluses:
- Guillaume Latendresse. How good does Latendresse look? He was one of the Wild players buzzing the net all game long, and he was rewarded with scoring the only two goals the Wild saw.
- Martin Havlat. If it hadn't been for Havlat's pass on Latendresse's first goal, the Wild might not have scored all game.
- Brent Burns. Ignore the delay of game penalty. Burns ultimately played a strong game, and had a beautiful feed to Latendresse for the Wild's second goal.
Game minuses:
- Coming to play. Yes, the Wild found themselves down a mere 20 seconds into the game, thanks to a puck deflecting off a skate (and it may have been kicked in), but they didn't really recover until the second period. For a team that needs to string together wins, they haven't come ready to play the last two games.
- Cal Clutterbuck. The Wild's hit leader and energy guy went down in the first period to injury and didn't return. The Wild need him healthy if they're going to put together much of anything in the final eighteen games.
- Officiating. Not to harp on this one again, but the officiating in Wild games has been awful this season, and, since the Olympic break, it almost seems as though it's gotten worse. This time, the whistles were used, but for some questionable calls that made earlier non-calls stand out even more. The most glaring example? The goaltender interference call against Mikko Koivu, when a similar play had happened earlier at the other end of the ice.
Next up: The Wild need to get moving if they want to hold hope of playing in the NHL's second season. Maybe playing against the Florida Panthers will be the balm the team needs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment