.500 On The Road, This Time
Ending the 4 game road trip 2 for 4 isn’t such a bad thing. After taking down Calgary and Vancouver and having a miserable game against an Oiler team that we should have had a much better showing against, we rolled into Minnesota on tired legs.
The boys didn’t have much gas left in their tanks but they really gave their all and hung tight with a fired up Wild in the first period. High paced and seriously defensive on both ends, the first period burned a lot more energy than we could afford but neither team could produce any goals despite outshooting the Wild 10 -8. Josh Harding was on fire… still (the intrepid backup Wild thing has ousted Backstrum from his job as primary in the last few games).
The Wild sensed a breakdown in our skill set (absolutely no forechecking anywhere to be found) and started a shelling campaign against Bryz! 15 - 8 sogs in favor of the Wild in this stanza. It seems that Minny has found a 4th line to roll just like us and that pays off for them as Demitra and Sheppard both find a way past Bryz! to make it 2 - 0 Wild. Everyone gushes about the Wild’s defensive style of play (boring? but effective) but these guys can flat out score once they wear you out and lull you into their tempo. Jovocop continued his shiny ways as he obliges young Voros with a duel. Joves gives Vthang a lesson that lays the kid out (JV takes a facial cut that forces him to leave the ice for a few) but that wasn’t from anything Voros managed to throw, just hit the ice face forward on the he-man take down. Its still 2 - 0 at this point and anyone’s game.
At this point I’m screamin in my living room ‘Just let them play Coyotes hockey Wayne! This Minny tempo sucketh mightily... Where the hell are the forwards? Stop backing up all day blue line!’
But the third starts much the same way as the second ended, with the Wild striking hot and quick to make it 3 - 0 then lulling us into their Granny on the porch tempo hockey… right up until the point where their 1st liner finally gets loose and Gabby snaps one by Breezy making it 4 -0 Wild.
We have to either go to sleep or break loose. We start breaking. This team just has no quitting point. Despite not being able to capitalize on 2 of the 3 PPs the Wild give us as we finally break the trance state the Dawgs refuse to go down with a goose egg on their plate and the Doaner flips a tip-in past the red hot Harding with 5+ minutes left in the game. We get a little more life but the Wild go into shut down mode and we can’t muster up enough to get anything else on the board. 4 - 1 Wild final.
Well, I was hopin to go 3 - 1 on this trip despite the very good teams we faced. Realistically speaking though, we still did better than we should have. Shanking a Louie-less Vancouver and dousing a red hot Flames team was good enough for me. The only bad point was letting the slippery Oil slide past us in the 1 game I thought we for sure could take on this trip. Minny has had our number for years. Some day we are gonna give those boys a taste of Coyotes hockey (big hits and monster defense while still managing to throw heat at the net from a firing on cylinders scoring committee) rather than play Lemaire’s game.
So we come home. Where I hope that the boys get a lift from the home town crowd. Don’t be shy or quiet. Bring your signs, you noise makers and your support out to the Job folks. These warriors deserve it.
~photos from Paul Battaglia and Associated Press~
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