A ‘Wild’ Win, Harding and Havlat propel past Avs.

I wanted to take a night off from blogging.  I’ve been battling migraines for the past 24 hours, and wanted to get my rest tonight instead of writing.  However, the Minnesota Wild played incredible tonight.  It was on the second game of a back-to-back on the road. In other words, I wasn’t expecting much.  I found myself “tweeting” about the game the entire night.  Josh Harding, I believe, injured himself 73 times tonight.  Our backup goalie arrived to the game ten minutes before the puck dropped; he had to stay in the game.  And by golly, did he ever deserve his fourth career shutout this evening.  I was praying to take the Avs to overtime just to get a much-needed point.  But thanks to a late goal by Marty Havlat, extending his consecutive point streak to six propelled the Wild past the Colorado Avalanche 1-0.  We get 2 points, a western conference team in front of the Wild get zero.  Tale a look at my tweets on the right side of this blog, hopefully I wont tweet anymore tonight so most of them will still be there.  (Ignore the ones about the Celtics/Magic game, I wont even try to understand what happened in that great game.)

Brodziak and Havlat celebrating the loan goal in tonight's game.

The Wild played 60 minutes of hockey for the second night in a row. A player that I say played outstanding outside of Havlat and Harding, is James Sheppard.  He skated hard and might have been the only player that was creating offense consistently; he was the other forward on the ice for our goal.  Our power play was dreadful, and our penalty kill won us the game late.  The Wild just seem to have the Avalanche’s number this year.  We have beat the Avs in plenty of games this year we had no business being in. The Wild won the season series 4-2. Minnesota is 12-2-2 in its last 16 games against Colorado.  Marty Havlat has 29 points in his last 29 games, remarkable.  The Wild are relentless.  Just after people are about accept the fact this is a rebuilding year, the Wild have a new fire in them and are winning games.  If the Wild make the playoffs, I have no question these two nights are the ones we circle, and describe as the turning point.  Teams always look back on their season and try to find a turning point.  First I thought the comeback win against the Blackhawks was it, because we followed with four consecutive wins at home.  But then we lost four of the ugliest games on the road, we look disinterested and didn’t give much effort.  We have changed the lineup, we have four solid lines, and players are finding their identity.  I love the checking line that Richards has put together: Nolan/Belanger/Clutterbuck.  We have our top two scoring lines, and a fourth line that is pull of energy and things to prove.  Our fourth line doesn’t have goons on it; it has Andrew Ebbett who is already on his third team this season, James Sheppard could be getting his last shot as a member for the Wild, and he is showing a sense of urgency, and finally Robbie Earl brings it every night as he just wants to prove he belongs in the NHL.  Nobody is playing selfish hockey, the Wild are playing disciplined.  Only two penalties tonight, and only had to kill off two penalties last night. The Wild know they stole one tonight and this is where they have struggled this year, because we wont steal one against the Sharks Saturday night.  The Wild cannot wait 56 minutes to score against the Sharks Saturday, because they are too good.  The Sharks are 8-1-1 in their last ten, however they’re losing to the Blackhawks right now 3-1 in the second period.    The only thing that didn’t go well for the Wild this evening was the scoreboard watching.  Calgary and Phoenix went into a shootout, so the Coyotes got two points and the Flames got one.  The Blues beat the Oilers 2-1, and the Kings eased by the Blue Jackets 4-1. Oh one last thing, the Wild snapped the Avs seven game winning streak and are now one point of the playoff picture. 🙂