Wild Hockey Fan

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Playing the second of three straight games at Xcel Energy Center leading into Hockey Day, Minnesota guaranteed itself a winning homestand with a 5-1 win over the visiting Edmonton Oilers. The teams entered Thursday’s Northwest Division matchup with identical 21-18-3 records, and, in the first meeting between the teams this season, a chance to make a statement of sorts.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored a goal and added two assists, while Niklas Backstrom made 20 saves to remain perfect (10-0) against the Oilers as the Wild earned a 22nd win on the season.

“We were waiting for this,” said Head Coach Jacques Lemaire.

After so often playing with a 1-0 deficit, Minnesota opened the scoring for the second time in as many games, and, as with Tuesday night vs. Phoenix, did not wait terribly long to do so. While Tuesday’s surprise came in the form of the how — 46 seconds into the game — Thursday’s surprise may have come in the form of the who. Krys Kolanos scored for the first time during this calendar year to give the home team its lead.

Right wing Antti Miettinen started the scoring play along the left wing, then walked past Lubomir Visnovsky with a nifty one-handed move, pulling the puck to the outside of the defenseman and cutting around to pick it up on the inside. The righthanded shot whipped a puck across the zone on his forehand to Kolanos, who redirected it through Dwayne Roloson’s pads for a 1-0 lead at 6:25.

Minnesota had opened a 6-3 lead in shots to that point, but the Oilers took the next three on Backstrom, including one to tie the game. Backstrom made a save on a Denis Grebeshkov shot, only to have the rebound bounce near Dustin Penner, who was able to pull the puck back to a place where Liam Reddox could push it in to make it 1-1 at 11:44.

The Oilers earned back-to-back power plays with Wild penalties at 13:15 and 16:12, momentum that carried Edmonton nearly to the end of the period and to a 11-7 shots advantage with under two minutes to play.

“You could tell, in the first period, they were getting shots and our defensemen were ahead of their forwards,” Lemaire said. “They missed a few goals there.”

Cal Clutterbuck would restore the lead at 18:55 on the Wild’s eighth shot. James Sheppard picked up a drop pass from Pierre-Marc Bouchard as the trio broke into the offensive zone, and Sheppard sent a pass across the top of the zone, where Clutterbuck’s quick wrister beat Roloson high to the glove side.

“The way he’s playing, you know, he deserves a goal a game,” said Lemaire of Clutterbuck. “Shep made that pass, and then [Clutterbuck] was in great position, and [he] just send a rocket there, top shelf.”

The second period progressed without scoring, and only a combined 11 shots, as Edmonton seemed to dampen some of its own momentum with minor penalties at 4:40, 10:05 and 19:11.

“When you’re on the power play, and you’re leading, you’re in a great position,” Lemaire said, noting that’s how the Wild began the final frame.

In a third period that saw the Oilers called for 13 minutes in penalties, Minnesota closed out the win in record-setting fashion. Having scored three third-period goals Tuesday against Phoenix, the Wild’s three-goal third Thursday, according to Elias Sports Bureau, marked the first time the franchise had ever recorded the feat in back-to-back games.

Bouchard made the most of an Edmonton miscue to extend the Wild lead. Sheldon Souray mishandled a pass back to him in the Oilers, with the puck ricocheting off his skate and into the high slot. Bouchard grabbed it and stepped into his team-high fifth shot to beat Roloson for a 3-1 lead at 8:21 of the third.

The creative winger has been focusing on the idea of shooting more often.

“Repeat that to myself before every game, or even sometimes before every shift,” he said of the idea of taking his shots. “Lately, I’ve been trying to shoot more, and tonight I was able to get one.”

Brent Burns earned the next one, converting the Wild’s fourth even-strength goal (with the teams playing four-on-four) of the game, thanks in large part to yet another individual effort from Mikko Koivu. Koivu, who baited a Coyotes defenseman on Tuesday, moved slowly into the zone, before hitting the gas just enough to split Erik Cole and Denis Grebeshkov, leaving Roloson to face a developing two-on-zero. With Burns moving in quickly, Koivu hit him on the far post for a 4-1 lead at 15:19.

A few more Oilers penalties later, including Sam Gagne’s four-minute high stick on Eric Belanger, and the Wild was looking at a five-on-three advantage in the waning minutes, during which Belanger closed the scoring at 19:14.

Game puck goes to …

Bouchard. He was plus-3 with five shots in 24 shifts.

“He was good, Butch,” Lemaire said. “He was really good tonight. Probably his best game all year.”

Quote Sheet

“I know what we’re doing to get some more chances. The thing is, we’re beating people. There was a time when we couldn’t beat one player one-on-one. We couldn’t beat a guy one-on-one. And now we do it at times, and it opens up [the ice]. And then we get our chances and we get our goals. This will give you confidence for the other shifts.” — Lemaire

“We’ve been practicing getting open and hitting open guys. I think maybe before I might have just taken a shot on net or kept going down, but I saw a stick and I saw Clutter being open, so I just passed to him.” — Sheppard

“I’m not really going out of my way to do what I’m doing. I’m not changing who I am or the way I usually play games. I think it just comes naturally to me. Hopefully, I can keep it going.” — Clutterbuck

“It’s frustrating when a team beats you regularly, and you’re down, 2-1, and then they get another goal, you feel like, ‘Not again.’ You could see that the guys were undisciplined after that. But, up to that point, [the] game could have gone either way.” — Lemaire on the Oilers

James MacDonald | Wild.com
Minnesota Wild

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 8:42 am and is filed under Game Night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.