12/21 Avs vs Wild GDT

Quote :

Associated Press

Niklas Backstrom said he played poorly in his last start. He rarely fails to play well against his next opponent.

Backstrom looks to continue his mastery of the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night when the Minnesota Wild try to improve to 5-0 this season against their Northwest Division rivals.

Minnesota (17-15-3) trails first-place Colorado (20-11-6) by nine points, but that deficit would be much bigger if not for how the Wild have fared in the season series. The Avalanche have lost once by one goal, once by two and twice in shootouts this season to Minnesota.

"Any year, any team can have another team's number; they just happen to have ours right now," defenseman Brett Clark told the Avalanche's official Web site. "We have to step up and change that starting tomorrow. We just need to stick to our game plan and worry about ourselves."

The major worry for the Avalanche is Backstrom, who is 14-2-2 with a 1.99 goals-against average in his career against them. He's posted a 1.62 GAA in three wins in 2009-10 over Colorado, making 22 saves in a 1-0 road victory in the last meeting Dec. 9.

That was the first of four straight victories for Backstrom before he had a rough outing Saturday in a 4-1 loss at Ottawa. He stopped 24 of 28 shots in a game the Wild played after a fire in an equipment van outside Scotiabank Place destroyed much of their equipment Friday.

"I didn't play a good game, I don't think as a team we played a good game," Backstrom said. "You know it would be easy to hide behind all those excuses but that's not going to make us better."

The Wild have still won nine of 12 as they open a three-game homestand. They've won four straight in Minnesota.

Colorado won three of five on its homestand after winning 5-2 over Columbus on Saturday. The Avalanche scored four times in the first 8:02 after having three days off since a 6-1 loss to Washington in their previous contest.

"It was an ideal start, kind of the start every team dreams of," said Milan Hejduk, who had two assists in the scoring spree and added the final goal in the third period. "You can't get much better. We absolutely controlled the game."

Colorado's three leaders in goals - Wojtek Wolski, Hejduk and David Jones - have all failed to score against Minnesota this season. Rookie center Ryan O'Reilly has no points in his last 13 games and none versus the Wild.

"The standings are so tight right now, so no matter who you're playing against you really need the two points," O'Reilly said. "That's why every game feels like one of the biggest games of the year."

Craig Anderson is expected to start for Colorado. He has lost three times to Minnesota this season, posting a 2.54 GAA and losing both shootouts.

The Avalanche have lost four straight at Xcel Energy Center.

sparkle Avs is back and that means the Wild are pissed over their loss and ready to win!!!!!

Wild win it in a squeeker 4-3.

Wild win only if we are healthy, there is so much going against this team now, flu injuries, players out with concussion and new equipment exhaustion from the road trip

i think avs win it 3-2. typing this hurts

Key to winning = resurgent PP....even if they don't score on it they just HAVE to have a controlling PP which at least garners some momentum if nothing else...

Get the PP rolling and get a win.

Skates not broken in yet, Wild get their ass handed to them because you can't make a crisp pass with a blister on your foot.

Boogey was one man wrecker in crease.

This is a rape wow the worst possible thing that could have happen was the gear. 4-1 avs have 16 shots yeah not cool at all.

Well that was a hell of an ending....there were quite a few times where I thought we might tie it...but it was a ll a little too late. It really shows a lot so see that effort towards the end of a 4-1 game though...they let everybody know they still believe in themselves...

What a pass by Stoner on the Havlat goal eh? Havlat with the snipe to finish it off too...Havlat almost tied the game by himself at the end there.

0-4 on the PP and gave up a shortie....in the end that was a big part of losing.

Wild In-Game and Post-Game article

Quote :

Minnesota’s comeback bid, was too little too late in 4-3 home loss to the Avalanche

The charge towards the holidays is relentless, especially in the NHL schedule as the league attempts to stuff in the maximum amount of games in preparation for the Olympic break in February. The grind means that teams struggle to stay healthy and have little time to heal up and another side effect is more and more players from the farm team get a cup of coffee at the NHL level. Minnesota has already used 8 players who have played most of their season with the Houston Aeros. It is nice to pass on some playing time those players who are working so hard in the minor leagues and the same could be said for the Northwest Division leading Colorado Avalanche as they too have relied upon a fair share of players from its AHL affiliate in the Cleveland, Ohio-area.

However its the Wild that have owned this series thus far, with Minnesota a perfect 4-0 versus the Avalanche. Yet this makes for a perfect trap game as Minnesota finds itself desperate for a victory and perhaps feeling a little confident of their Avalanche domination at this point in the league. So will the Wild make it 5-0 or will Colorado make those four previous wins seem like a distant memory? (click on the link for the rest of the article)

Ah...so close and yet so far!

too little too late.

was a fun game to be at (considering the tix were free).

i was pleased to see they didn't lay down and take it, but man do we need to work on our second period hustle.

Boogie looks to be making his presence known in the crease. I hope it starts working out more.

Havlat can keep doing what he is doing

Koivu, Bruno, and Mittens line is still a fav of mine

Belanger looked invisible tonight.

Zanon and Hnidy........not so good nights for them.

I like Stoner from what i got to see tonight. I haven't seen him the past two games, but tonight hooking up that pass and willing to drop em, I say we keep him up for a while and send Scott back down.

Scott is a trade he can fight you put him on waivers he'll be claimed, we need to get our pp going, MAB had 9 on the season, zits needs to start ripping em.

i hope this team gets back in the grove after the gear issue.

This gear issue could be around a while, which really sucks!!!! I want to know who is responsible for that fire ASAP! Some guys still look a little uncomfortable and "out" of it. And Backstrom needs his old pads back. The ones that he's wearing now (that he got rid of 3 weeks ago) are bad karma. Burn them too. And I'm not blaming the loss on him either. What I DO blame the loss on is the clusterfucks who made the worst line change in history during that powerplay. I don't give a fook if the puck bounced.....COMMUNICATE YOU FRICKIN' HOSERS!!!! Had that mistake not happened, we could have very well gotten a point (atleast) out of that game. WTF were you idiots thinking???

As long as the Wild continue to fail the gear will be the scapegoat.

Hey Wild fans, how was the refereeing last night?

they didn't look uncomfortable last night in their gear. the 2nd period killed us. the reffing, meh, could have been better. but it is what it is and we gotta take care of Edmental tomorrow night

Them Oilers players are gonna be angry.... *cough7-2cough*

yeah, they got R-A-P-E-D!

It was so worth staying up for and only getting 4 hours of sleep to watch it. Especially after the way they came back on STL down here just a couple weeks ago.

I don't like the outcome for the Wild tomorrow. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Kwright315 wrote:

It was so worth staying up for and only getting 4 hours of sleep to watch it. Especially after the way they came back on STL down here just a couple weeks ago.

I don't like the outcome for the Wild tomorrow. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Jackman is a spineless POS BTW.

Wild are in a bad mood from last night. it will carry over to tomorrow nights game and the oilers will be sent back to Alberta turned inside out and feeling like they should become the 2nd Canadian NBA team.

cehnehdeh wrote:

Kwright315 wrote:

It was so worth staying up for and only getting 4 hours of sleep to watch it. Especially after the way they came back on STL down here just a couple weeks ago.

I don't like the outcome for the Wild tomorrow. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Jackman is a spineless POS BTW.

I don't like that turd either. EJ all the way.

Well, that wasnt much fun....

cehnehdeh wrote:

Well, that wasnt much fun....

lol, Troll fail

00Xtremeninja wrote:

cehnehdeh wrote:

Well, that wasnt much fun....

lol, Troll fail

Mod or not that's troll on troll action!

00Xtremeninja wrote:

Yup, cue the gay troll porn music

wickee-wickee-wickeee