I guess I can't lose when two of my favorite teams face off on the same sheet of ice. Of course one of my favorite teams is going to win and the other is going to lose, but I still win either way. What was impressive is that the Bruins known for scoring goals this season were shut down cold.
Tonight The Minnesota Wild played their patiented air tight defense, and made the game exciting even when it was only a 1-0 game. Both Goal tenders (Fernandez and Backstrom ) were awesome. What does this mean? Basically once Marian Gaborik announced that he was having surgery on his hip and would be on the shelf for the Wild, they have gone 3-0-1 against some of the best teams in the NHL. My interpretation of that is Gaborik was a distraction to the team and once it was clear he isn't probably coming back, they Wild went out and played better without him.
When I first saw their schedule I thought there was a good possibility that they could go 0-4. After the Wild play the Flyers their schedule gets a little easier.
Think of this, the Wild shut down the high flying Boston Bruins lead by Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic and Mark Savard two of three players are two of the more dynamic offensive players in the North Eastern Division. Lucic is becoming one of the grittiest power forwards in the NHL. (Of course Parise and Vanek have been awesome too). Just saying its no small feat. Check out Wild blog extrodinare Mike Russos comments on the win. I guess the Wild like to play against the leagues best, even without Gabby.
In the past four games, the Wild’s played three division leaders, three of the best teams in the NHL (I’m not including Colorado obviously) and the Wild’s 3-0-1 in the past four.
Two of those wins have come against the two best teams in each conference — first San Jose, and now Boston, the highest-scoring team in the NHL who hadn’t been shut out all season.
As James Sheppard said, “We needed to play against the best teams in the league to get us to find our true game.”
Until tonight. Niklas Backstrom again sparkled for his second consecutive shutout. He’s now got five and 14 in his career. He’s got 19 wins, a 2.14 goals against average and .929 save percentage. Seems like All-Star worthy numbers to me.
(check out the rest of Mike Russo's article)
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