Trade Skoula!

If they don't trade him, he's in danger of being bodily harmed by one of his teammates...or a random fan. Tonight he is directly responsible for the loss. Mark Parrish tied the game up with five or so minutes to go, and before they even had time to make the goal announcement, the Sharks had scored. Why? Because Martin Skoula sucks at life. DR is very famous for that ten player trade that sent Gilmour to the Leafs back in the day, but now he made an even worse decision to get Martin Skoula for Willie Mitchell instead of nothing. The team would have been better off losing Willie to free agency. Night after night he gives away the puck, trips over paint lines, and has no offensive upside to make up for it, not to mention he looks like he got badly beaten with the ugly stick. People in the crowd were chanting "Let's Trade Skoula!", instead of the usual and ever creative "Let's Go Wild!" Oh and Demitra. He needs to learn how to pass/recieve passes and take faceoffs.

On a brighter note, Mark Parrish scored a goal, and looked like a very excited eight year old. Actually, so did I as Mark Parrish is my hero. Niklas Backstrom played very well, even if the defencemen seem to started their New Year's celebration early. Maybe that's where all those empty bottles of Captain Morgan came from (as I was walking down the stairs after the game, there was a cart full of empty Captain Morgan bottles). It's not good that he's being forced to make upwards of 40 saves each time we play.

It's almost January, so who will be the captain for the next month? I hope it's Parrish again, but rumblings around the Cities point to Belanger. Everyone is all of a sudden singing his praises again. I like Belanger and all, but he's not the second coming of Guy Lafleur. Wes Walz maybe, but not Guy Lafleur.

PS: Whoever can explain to me why Jacques Lemaire still likes Skoula and can make me believe their explaination (and preferably entertain me while doing so) will win some sort of prize.

Well, That Was Exciting

The 5-4 finish was quite nerve racking, but whatever, we won, and I got lots of good pictures that have made me many friends. I don't have a tremendous amount to say about the game since I was highly medicated and really tired the whole time. Good game, but Jarret Stoll clearly should not play for us, he'd score too many goals on our net. Something like 3/4 of his goals this season have been against us.

Moral of the story: Mark Parrish is clearly a better captain than Ethan Moreau. There are tons of pictures up on Facebook (if you don't have facebook and still want to see, that can be arranged), but here's a good one.


Tonight: Joe Thornton, er the San Jose Sharks at the X. I'll be at that game too, and I'm wondering if Joe Thornton will let me have a butt shot for my inadvertant collection of them. I'm hoping we play better against them than we have, but if we barely beat the Oilers, I'm not hopeful.

WJCs update: Canada lost to Sweden, but they are still going to win the gold anyway. From what I have heard, they deserved to lose.

PS: I just chocked on those words, but there you have it. I supposed a loss once in a while doesn't hurt, it reminds them that winning is good.

Parrish Scores 200 (oh and the Wild won)

Last night Mark Parrish, my new favorite player on the team, scored his 200th NHL goal. He's quite excited about this, but managed to contain himself long enough to give a polite and informative interview while probably thinking that Mike Greenlay is an idiot. Congrats to you, Mr. Parrish, and I hope they are right that you will now score a million goals in a row.

It was a pretty good game last night against the Coyotes. I missed the first part of the game while watching an excellent steamrolling of the Lightning by the Habs. When I flipped over to the Wild game, the score was already 1-0. I tried this tactic with the Oilers, since when I left them, they were up 1-0 also, but they unfortunately lost 2-1 to the Ducks. Anyways, the Wild beat the Coyotes 3-2 with Bryzgalov in net. Sadly he was not interviewed last night, which bums me out because he is always entertaining. It could just be that he has a really high-pitched voice and a very um, interesting command of English. In addition to getting his 200th goal, Parrish was on the ice and in front of the net for the other two goals for the Wild. Sounds like things are starting to come together better for him at the moment. Coach Gretzky looked slightly less upset than usual, which is good, considering they really had the Wild on the run towards the end of the game. I started to get nervous, especially after the Coyotes scored late in the game. All is well, and we play the Oilers on Saturday at the X. As I mentioned before, I'll be there with my family mostly cheering for the Wild. According to Russo of the Star Tribune, Mikko Koivu skated for 40 minutes on his own the other day. This is excellent news on the Koivu front. I wish him a continued speedy recovery. We need someone to win faceoffs.

Last night was a rare treat as we got to have HNIC on a Thursday night. The first game was the Habs vs. Lightning (GO HABS GO) and the second was the Canucks vs. the Shames. The Canucks won that one 5-3 I believe while the Habs won 5-1. Hopefully there will be another HNIC on Saturday. That would be a double bonus. Clearly the Oilers won't be on the Late Game that night as the Wild game starts on time, whereas it would have to start at 9 or 10 PM CST to be the correct timing for the Late Game.

WJC update: Canada is now 2-0! WHOO! CANADA FOR THE WIN!


This is my new wallpaper on my computer in honour of the WJCs. I love it.

Complete Crap

Before I rant about the game, I would first like to rant about the NHL. They have a rule that prohibits teams from traveling on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. That's fine, it's nice of them to observe a major Christian holiday, but it is a death sentence for all visiting teams on the 26th. If they want to have that rule, they should not put any games on the 26th, allowing teams to travel the day before the game and get their legs under them a bit better.

I don't know if the NHL's travel rule is completely to blame for the Wild getting smoked 8-3 by the Stars last night, but I'm sure it didn't help. Josh Harding had a rough night, as did Brent Burns. We were keeping pace with them goal for goal, but then something just exploded/died/self-destructed/etc. The score was 3-2 Stars at the end of the first. That was managable, but it all went to hell after that. I now present to you the game in pictures.

First they scored like a minute in..

Demitra had two goals on the night...

Then they lit up Harding

This is what the team looked like at the end of the game...

And this is what Coach Lemaire looked like.

Notes: Mark Parrish clearly pissed off the hockey gods. He had more good chances and didn't score, but then again no one else on the team really did either, so it's ok.

There might be some light blogging upcoming as I had elbow/wrist surgery yesterday. I'll see how it goes. I should be at the game on Saturday if anyone else will be there. Yay Oilers, even though I kind of don't like playing them, because it's hard to choose. I like the Oilers, but we need to get points in the division.

Oh It's THEM Again...

Captain Grumpy had another rough night. No wonder he's grumpy.

Well, the Red Wings killed us once again. The score was much closer than it should have been, Backstrom made 47 saves. He was pretty good last night, but the rest of the team disappeared. I'm not even sure how the Wild managed to get one goal in the 4-1 loss. I was texting with Steph, and she was kind enough not to gloat, even though the Wild deserved it they played so poorly. The Wild just let them make passes uninterrupted, and hesitated before shooting. The Awesome Dude who sits next to me, his buddy, and I were making bets as to how many shots the Red Wings would get. The final shot total was 51-19. I doubt I need to tell you who that was in favor of. I'm really, really glad we only play them four times a year. They are by far the best team in the NHL right now.

Next up: the hated Stars on the 26th in Dallas at 7:30PM CST.

A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Yippee! We killed the Rangers!

Shot taken of the scoreboard after the game

Take that Rangers! You are not welcome in Minnesota, according to Marian Gaborik and Wild fans. The fans were all over that game, especially after Brent Burns hit that dude, making him fall down really hard. There really isn't a whole lot more to say about it. I believe Brendan Shanahan made some polite comments about how it was the game of a lifetime, etc, but I can't find them right now. He was denied hardcore several times by Harding as the Rangers tried to bring the game back. They way outplayed us in the third, but we were unstoppable. Too bad they didn't save a few of those goals for the Red Wings...

Even more entertaining than the destruction of the Rangers were the comments made by Coach Renney after the game. He got a penalty for "abusing the refs" the official penalty was called "abuse of officials". I didn't know they had those.

"I pride myself on how I respect the whole operation of the National Hockey League and the officiating therein," coach Tom Renney said. "I'm that way because I'm sincere about it. In the heat of the moment players will lose the handle too. I'm disappointed with the way things transpired. But it's no excuse."

Quote courtesy of TSN

WHOOOOOO! I'm back!

I'm back in Minnesota, and I went to the game last night. I got to see the Wild beat the Preds 3-2. The first two periods of the game absolutely sucked, but the third was good. The played like crap for a while, Josh Harding wanted to quit life, and Backstrom looked bored. It was Jacques Lemaire's 1000th game coached last night, which was really cool. He has more games coached than played, and has had a brilliant career as both a player and coach. Hats off to you Mr. Lemaire, and here's to many more games coached.

Tomorrow night we play the Rangers, and my mission that I have been forced to accept, is to get a good picture of Shanny. I suspect he doesn't wear a helmet for warm ups. Sakic didn't and Shanahan is vain, so my money is on no helmet. I'm not gonna lie, I haven't paid attention to the Rangers lately, so I really have no idea what's going to happen.

I have a bunch of pictures from Tuesday's game up on Facebook, but I'll post my favorite one here.

The Man, the Legend, doing one of the things he does best...he's a sharp dresser. Congrats Coach Lemaire!

Tonight we went to see Nick Schultz, and I take back some of the mean things I said about him. He was very gracious and polite, and he positively glowed when asked about his son. As expected, he signed his name in a tiny place so he could sign it on the number.

Sorry about the red-eye...I was too lazy to edit the picture apparently.

NHL Road Trip promo (Extended Version)

To remind you to vote for the All-Star Game...

Portland Needs a Better Airport

I'm currently sitting in the PDX International Airport using the slowest (but free!) WiFi internet connection known to man. I have two hours to kill, so I suppose it doesn't really matter how slow it is.

It has been an extremely stressful last few days, but the stress has been lifted, and in 9 hours I will be home on my parents' couch stuffing my face and watching hockey. It's a good day (minus the unfortunately long travel time).

Friday night I should have been studying harder than I was for my calc exam, but I really wanted to watch the game, so I made up for it on Saturday morning. Nothing makes me happier than FCP FAILING at life. Elly over at No Pun Intended has an excellent post up about why you should blame all of your problems on FCP. It's an excellent read, I highly recommend checking it out. Right, so the Wild schooled the Ducks 5-2. I'm kind of sad that I know they will improve once Scott Niedermayer takes off running (or skating) again, but it's ok. My reward for that is getting to watch him skate. In order to make room for the good Niedermayer, the Ducks ended up dumping Andy McDonald in return for Doug Weight, a prospect whose name is escaping me, and a draft pick. I have to say, I was hoping Burke would have to squirm around and make a bad deal. I'm bumming that the Wild couldn't have picked up Andy McDonald, because I think he would have been a good fit. Now that he is no longer a Duck, my liking for him has gone up exponentially.

Last night I recieved a set of excellent updates from my super awesome mom, because I had used up too much internet watching the Ducks game and couldn't watch a second game in 24 hours. There was also the part about how I had a final from 7-10 PM, which was basically the time west coast games run. Woot. I didn't bomb my exam, and the Wild didn't stink up the place, even with Harding starting back to back games. I was surprised to see Harding play, I had put Backstrom in for my fantasy team...and didn't find out until too late.

I'm especially sad that I missed the Early Game on HNIC. The Habs owned the Leafs (not like it's hard) 4-0. I heard rumblings that McCabe got hurt during all of this. I'm sure my Canadian friends either will either gleefully fill me in on the details, or tell me this as they are drinking it off. Anyone know who was on After Hours this week? Did I miss anything good? Stupid Saturday finals, I was home in time for After Hours last year.

Random Tidbits of life

The Wild against any remotely good team

So there was a game on Tuesday apparently. I went to a concert instead of watching it, and it sounds like I made an excellent decision. (besides the fact that it was an amazing concert) The Wild got destroyed 4-1 by the Sharks. Oops. C'mon Captain Grumpy( so named because his teammates call him Grumpy, it's written on his sticks and he's the captain for the month), you need to make a Wes Walz speech and kick the team into gear. We need some road wins.

Coming up the Wild will swing through SoCal, but I unfortunately will be studying for/taking an exam during both of those games, so I would ask you to seek out Finny of Girl With a Puck and Earl Sleek over at Battle of California for their takes on the game. For the Kings: kms2 at Purple Crushed Velvet, Ckim at A Queen Among Kings (she's going to be at the game), and RudyKelly also of Battle of California. These fine bloggers will give the enemy opinion on the games in addition to the Wild Blogosphere listed at right. I will be mostly MIA until Sunday when I fly home. I have calculated that I have an 11 hour travel time, so I'll be bored hanging around in airports. Here's to hoping that Scott Niedermayer doesn't make his season debut against the Wild.

Manny Fernandez will need knee surgery and is likely out for the season. DR, I know I give you a lot of crap and say that I think you suck at life quite frequently, but getting rid of Manny seems like a pretty genius move just now.

Joe Sakic is still out with a groin injury, and I'm really hoping this doesn't mean he's slowing down. I know he's the type of player that will retire as soon as he feels he isn't playing at the same level anymore, and I'd really hate to see him go.

Mikko Koivu looks doubtful for the SoCal swing, but I'm REALLY, REALLY hoping he will heal quickly and rejoin the team. They need him like nobody's business.

Photo idea borrowed from Elly @ No Pun Intended. Thanks!
All news reports used can be found at TSN.ca

Zetterdouche and win #2

So Friday night the Wild got murdered by the Red Wings. Zetterdouche (thanks, Margee!) got a hat trick, and the Wild lost 5-0. 5-0! HARDING, WTF? You are in the big show now for real. Get it together. Too bad we don't have Roloson. Back in the day, he OWNED the Red Wings. Manny Fernandez played much like Harding, only instead of the Homeless Swede paying him to let goals in, it was Brendan Shanahan. Just because you were brought in to replace Fernandez doesn't mean you have to BECOME him. I now dislike ALL Red Wings. Ever.

The announcers kept going on about how the Wild had only won once ever at the Blue Jacket's arena, and I kept pounding my head on solid objects thinking they were cursing the karma. Turns out I was wrong for once, and dumb and dumber actually didn't kill the karma. A 2-1 win keeps the Wild over .500 in their last six games.

I'm glad Mark Parrish is back, but I and the Wild of course miss Mikko Koivu.

Top Ten Reasons I Can't Wait to go to Minnesota

10.) It snows there. None of this typhoon powered rain for weeks on end crap. And sun, don't get me started on how much I LOVE the sun. I will tell you every reason I can think of that the sun is good.

9.) HOCKEY! Season tickets, here I come. Centre Ice on a TV that I don't have to murder someone to watch. (one TV for 200 people is not sufficient)

8.) There are food types that are not some variation of Asian.

7.) I don't have to do homework.

6.) Caribou Coffee and all my other favorite places to hang out in MN will be there waiting for me, plus I won't have to spend an hour trying to figure out how to get where I want to go.

5.) I get to see my friends/have my arm fixed by a real doctor that doesn't use words like suck, bummer, and tell me he couldn't get into the school I attend if he were apply today when discussing the fact that I think my arm is falling off.

4.) Hopkins is much less sketchy than Salem.

3.) I won't have to comb the internet for any scrap of information I can find about my sports teams, I can just open my front door or flip on the TV.

2.) I can shoot the breeze with random people about anything as long as it's sports or the weather.

1.) Did I mention snow and hockey? Really? Well I'm mentioning them again.

What now, Detroit?

They need to change the name of their restaurant...

St. Paul has officially been named the new "Hockeytown" according to Yahoo!.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=rm-saintpaul110107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Oh yeah, and we play them tomorrow. Should be an interesting game to say the least. Steph, you and I are just not friends this week I see, but good job in getting Hemsky back. I appreciate it.

I may not have a lot of time to post until after tomorrow/Saturday/maybe beyond since it's finals week, so I invite you to check out all of the awesome blogs in my sidebar from around the NHL...

If you dislike Bucci : Check out A Queen Among Kings, or Hockey Blog in Canada

If you need to laugh until you hurt: Sportsquee, Barry Melrose Rocks, and Covered in Oil are good choices.

Eye Candy: Hot Oil is having their annual "Hot Off" to determine the hottest Oiler on the team.

Enemy opinions: Steph over at No Pun Intended will fill you in on the Wings, and Bethany at Bethany's Hockey Rants has the Blue Jackets covered.

If you are jumping up and down with glee because Scott Niedermayer is coming back, I'm sure Finny at Girl with a Puck, and Earl Sleek at Battle of California would love to join you in celebration.

And as always if you are bored (or procrastinating)...YouTube is your friend! If you are a really good person, you will vote for your favorite NHL players for the All-Star ballot.

I'll be sure and put up awesome posts once I'm back in MN and able to see the team in person, shoot the breeze with random people, talk to opposing fans, er I mean heckle them, and I won't be doing mountains of homework every day so I'll actually have time to surf the net and/or find something cool to put up.

Wildblogosphere: Wild Puck Banter has a new contributer who also likes Mark Parrish and Mikko Koivu. You should check it out. *nudge*

Valeri Kamensky vs Scott Niedermayer Hockey Fight

Because this is the greatest video clip I will ever see of Nieds...and because I have a secret thing for him even if he does play for the Ducks. It's because of Team Canada, I swear!

Liveblogging the Broad Street Bully Wannabes

I came back from dinner at the halfway point of the game just in time to hear the announcers talking about how great they think Steve Downie is...

Second half of First:
Score is 1-0
NOOOOOO! That was a horrible play. 2-0 BSBW.
Dominique Moore? Apparently we have a woman on our team now...
Are these announcers homers much? Jesus.
Timmonen looks like he just got nutted...announcer says he's "writhing in pain".
Centre Ice just cut out on me! Hosers! Oh here we got, Timmonen icing his nuts..er midsection.
Whoo! Gaborik breakaway! Or not. WHY! WHY DO YOU FAIL AT BREAKAWAYS!
Interviewing some Flyer and putting out fresh towels.
There is now a random thing called "Coatesy's Corner". Whatever. Not nearly as good as watching Don Cherry turn purple.

Second Period:
My roommate took an interest in the game randomly, so I'm teaching her about the great game of hockey.
What's with all the stupid penalties?
Watch yourself Fedoruk. You had better believe the league is watching, hits like that are what keeps getting the Flyers suspended. Please try to forget you ever played for them.
WHOOO! I almost forgot. Did you guys see that absolutely sick goal? Awesome.
Yet again, interviewing some random Flyer.

Third Period:
CRAP! What was that? Co'mon, you guys are better than that. 3-1 Flyers.
So close, then a bunch of random punching, with Lupul trying to look tough. Just a hint for you...it's not working.
It's never Keith Carney, it's always Veteran Defenceman Keith Carney. At least according to the announcers. It's so random.

That was ridiculous. I was not pleased with those goals. Good thing I just picked up another goalie today, trade pending. That goal we got was sweet, though.

Oh yeah and that Scott Niedermayer guy is back. TSN is all over it.

Game previews, Captains, and limericks

C is for captain, that's good enough for me-What Cookie Monster would have sung if he were a cool kid and a hockey fan instead of a cookie fan.

Today the Wild will play the Canucks. Whoppee, more division rivals. All I have to say is we had better beat the crap out of them. Koivu isn't skating and is in the IR, so I'm going to guess he won't play for a bit. I need my boys Rolston, Bouchard, and goalies to be sharp tonight for my fantasy team! I've had a rather tough week, but I might be able to pull off a win tonight.

Mark Parrish has been named the captain for the month of December. Congrats to "Captain Grumpy"! He used a lot of words like proud and honoured when asked for his reaction to being named captain for the third time. Here's to December being much better than November! As the above picture illustrates, I'm just really not a fan of Brian Rolston as captain. No particular reason why, I'm not just not.

Also, the first person that can find a the video clip played on the NHL Network/TSN of Parrish fishing and breaking his boat will be my hero forever.

Speaking of Captains, everyone should check out SportSquee. Margee has, as usual, posted a brilliant investigation into the secret lives of the NHL's captains. Sakic's is my favorite. (No, not just because it's Sakic.)

Clearly Janessa was bored in the shower today, because she created this limerick about Jarret Stoll. There are more of these on HF, including an excellent one about Pierre McGuire.

There was a boy from Sask who played for the Oil
He could really fire the puck
The next C he'll wear
The Oiler fans swear
Until he started to suck

And one about Cam Barker:
Cam Barker was drafted overall third
Whose play was increadibly absurd
He was supposedly the best
Even though there was the rest
He made Tigers fans say curse words

Don't forget to vote for your favorite NHLers for the All-Star game! I have a link up...use it! Backstrom needs some love, he's not doing as well as he could be.

Letter to Wes Walz

Dear Wes,
You sounded very unsure during your retirement speech and subsequent interview about how the fans view you. I just wanted to say a few things to make it clear that we adore and respect you as a player and a person. You have been one of my favorite players if not my favorite player for a long time. I am shocked to say the least, and I believe that you can still play very well in this league, but this is about you, not me.

Everyday you came to the rink and gave it your all. Off the ice you were very giving in the community, friendly with the fans, and always smiling. On the ice your intesity and passion were unmatched, and it showed. Even though many people have expressed thoughts that you still have it, I respect that you feel you are not playing at the level you used to play at, and it is most important that you be happy with your decision, one that only you can make.

I wish you nothing but the best in your life, and I hope you realize just how much you will be missed. Please don't be a stranger at the X or in the community. Take care and good luck. Like someone else said, it's a not goodbye, it's a thank you.

Sincerely,

Kirsten

Walz to Announce Retirement

Longtime NHLer and Wild veteran Wes Walz will announce his retirement tomorrow, December 1st. TSN, NHL.com, and Wild.com are all reporting this. I think I'm going to go and cry in a corner now. I am very sad that I did not get to see him play this season. He was my favorite Wild player, and has been since Brad Bombardir left. It was strange the way he left the team, but I respect him enough not to ask questions, and I'll leave it at that.

You will be missed, Walzy. All the luck in the world to you and your family in the future, and I hope you are content with your decision.

More tomorrow if I can bring myself to post something.