First, just another reminder that Russo will do his weekly Russo’s Radio spot from 6-6:30 tonight on AM-1500 KSTP. Hockey talk on the radio. Catch the fever!

Second, while Tomas Mojzis did clear waivers today the Wild has until tomorrow to make a roster decision. That’s because teams are given 48 hours to decide what to do after making an emergency goalie call-up.  Josh Harding, who has a “lower body strain” did not practice today. Nolan Schaefer was still here as the team’s second goalie.

Third, practice. Everyone else was on the ice today. Well, except for you-know-who. Actually, there was a rumor floating around that #10 was going to skate with the team today. But once again, it was a solo skate for Marian Gaborik.

The rest of the team worked hard on power plays . The first 25 minutes of the 50 minute practice was spent working on breaking out with the man advantage. Mostly, it was a bunch of shooting from the point. Which is a good thing, seeing as how this team’s offense needs any spark it can get right now. More on that in tomorrow’s paper.

That’s really about it. Nothing too taxing the afternoon following a victory over the Penguins.

Just landed. Defenseman Tomas Mojzis has passed through waivers. I believe the Wild will have to make a roster move today, either sending Mojzis to Houston, sending Nolan Schaefer back to Houston or placing Josh Harding on injured reserve.

Harding is supposed to be evaluated today.

Stensaas will be on the blog later, and I’ll be on KSTP tonight at 6.

As they say to air traffic control, “Good day.”

“Russo Radio” comes again Wednesday night at 6 pm on KSTP, 1500-am. Get some good questions ready and call in.

I don’t see what all this hype about Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby is about. Or maybe the Wild’s just that good defensively and Niklas Backstrom (THE UNSIGNED NIKLAS BACKSTROM) is downright in the zone right now.  

Needless to say, this was one of the biggest wins of the season for the Wild.

I won’t insult your intelligence and say the Wild was superb tonight. This team right now couldn’t shoot a puck in the Mississippi River from the Hennepin Bridge (and they didn’t actually score a goal in 65 minutes tonight), but defensively, this team is sick (31 goals allowed in 16 games, four allowed on the penalty kill).

Of course, it starts with the goalie, and coach Jacques Lemaire sang Backstrom’s praises tonight because he was not happy with the way the Wild started, with the way the Penguins won “all the battles” early, with the way the Wild’s got absolutely no prayer of scoring these days. The Wild has scored 39 goals this year (not including the three goals in the standings awarded for shootouts).

To give you a Lemaire taste: (“Our game now, it seems like it’s defense. At a time it’s going to get tougher if we don’t score. We can’t rely on the power play all the time to score. Defensively we did well. But I’d like to get Crosby and Malkin so we can get some offense.”)

Of course, tonight, Crosby was held pointless, as was Malkin, who’s 13-game point streak ended. Of course, it wasn’t helped by his disappearance from the ice late in the second period after he was nailed in the teeth by a puck. Crosby and Malkin each had one shot. The Penguins’ six-game win streak, one in which they scored four or more goals in all six games, ended.

Marek Zidlicky scored another shootout winner, and Backstrom stopped all three Pittsburgh shooters (including Sid the Kid) to improve to 8 for 8 in shootouts and 3-0 this season. The same Backstrom who used to be helpless in shootouts, by the way.

Defensively, Mikko Koivu, Eric Belanger and Kim Johnsson were pretty awesome tonight. On that OT kill, Koivu and Belanger just outworked the Pens. Belanger is so skilled defensively, the way he shrewdly lifts sticks to foil chances, the way he angles his stick to intentionally deflect shots in the crowd.

Johnsson played 29:56. The scouts, whom I was sitting next to tonight, were absolutely raving about Johnsson. This one scout I know quite well, who works for a team that really needs a mobile defenseman, in particular was going on and on about Johnsson to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Goalie Josh Harding has a “lower body” strain.

Third goalie Nolan Schaefer has been recalled from AHL Houston on an emergency basis. To make room, the Wild placed defenseman Tomas Mojzis on waivers, sources say.

I’d expect Mojzis will clear waivers. If he does, the Wild can either send him to the minors or maybe just put Harding on injured reserve tomorrow, but then he’d have to miss a week retroactive to yesterday.

I don’t think this is a major injury. After all, Harding lasted all practice yesterday, so the Wild might not want to put him on IR. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Also, if somebody gets hurt tonight, Mojzis I’d think would definitely stay.

I hear Detroit’s Darren McCarty is on waivers, too, per sources

GM Doug Risebrough was vague, but that’s also because I caught Risebrough by surprise by knowing about Moe. He had not yet told Mojzis.

Clarification: Doug Risebrough was on the Ottawa-Rangers press box seating chart, but he never made it to the game. He planned to scout the game, but flight problems forced him to detour to Pittsburgh. He was in Pittsburgh by 4:45 yesterday.  

Ottawa and the Rangers are two teams that could make sense for a potential Marian Gaborik trade. Bryan Murray, Ottawa’s GM, loves making blockbusters, and Rangers GM Glen Sather is buddy buddy with Risebrough.

Jacques Lemaire wants skaters tonight, so it looked like Colton Gillies will be back in. Derek Boogaard, Craig Weller and Mojzis looked to be scratched. Don’t know if fighter Eric Godard is playing tonight, but Matt Cooke, detested by the Wild, will be in.

Schaefer wasn’t yet here this morning, so Wild was shooting on one empty net at the skate

Penguins goalie Dany Sabourin, who beat the Wild last year, will start for an injured Marc-Andre Fleury. Pascal Dupuis will play the Wild for the first time since it traded him two seasons ago to the Rangers.

Lots of stuff going down at the Igloo this morning.

Penguins GM Ray Shero was sitting in the stands with agent Paul Krepelka, Jordan Staal’s agent. Of the Penguins’ core, Staal is the only player not signed long-term.

I also heard from a source that Brendan Shanahan is very close to signing with an NHL team.

Cal Clutterbuck is 21. He can finally drink in the U.S.

That be it from here.

Howdie, just got back from practice. Very snowy here. I got pelted as I walked to the Igloo, but it was pretty cleared up after practice.

Man, the Igloo’s old. I mean, Jacques Lemaire played there his rookie year

He said the two places he hated to play in the most? Pittsburgh and Minnesota. He said he hated the ice in both arenas. He said the best ice was Chicago, Detroit and Boston.

He also almost tripped this morning when his skate got caught in a huge rut at center ice: “Boogey must have turned there.”

I relayed that to Boogey and he said, “Come on, I’m a graceful turner.”

Couple things:

Uno: That Kurtis Foster feature I wrote today (here it is if you didn’t read), I got a couple emails wondering when that Project Xtreme episode will be on the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Network. Best I can tell you is spring ‘09. There’s no specific date yet, but I’m sure it’ll be replayed often.

Dos: Speaking of replayed often, I got to catch Voices: Bob Kurtz yesterday. Very well done. Only bad part was when they thanked Kevin Falness in the end credits.

Tres: Stephane Veilleux turned 27 yesterday. As a gift, Lemaire huddled the team around Veilleux today and from behind, an unidentified teammate smashed him in the face with an enormous shaving cream towel. Veilleux’s visor and face were covered.

Like he was trying to catch the second shooter, Veilleux spent his post-shower trying to figure out who got him. Veilleux calls me Russ (pronounced Russ, not Roose like everyone else). He tried to get me to help figure out whom it was, and finally said, “Would you even tell me if you knew, Russ?” I said, “Of course, but if I knew, you’d have to read it in tomorrow’s paper.”

Veilleux: “Could have been Burns. Could have been Koivu. Couldn’t have been Butch. He was next to me, so it was impossible.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This line says it all: Jacques Lemaire, as we were walking out of the press conference, said to me with a loud laugh, “They have a day off tomorrow for this game! Can you believe it?”

No, but I thank you because I don’t mind not venturing out to the X on a Sunday, especially when I have a really good story ready to be written for Monday in the can (I’ll keep you guessing on that).

The Wild was not very good tonight. Man, this was a mind-numbing game to watch for two periods.

Thank goodness Erik Reitz scored his first NHL goal 1:48 into the third period, because that at least opened the game up and added some desperation to it.

There was some question as to whether Reitz or Brent Burns scored the goal, but it was eventually changed after the game. Burns didn’t feel it hit his stick and the off-ice officials felt replays showed it went off the Blue Jackets defenseman’s skate.

For Reitz, who played a season-high 15-plus minutes tonight, that’s a pretty special goal. People forget, but Reitz, 26, has been in this organization as long as Marian Gaborik and Nick Schultz. He played 363 games in Houston before becoming an NHL regular.

The Wild’s lead was short-lived. James Sheppard committed a defensive-zone turnover and Rick Nash made him pay.

But in the shootout, Niklas Backstrom, who used to be the worst shootout goalie in the NHL, denied the skilled Kristian “Beetlejuice” Huselius and the oh-so-talented rookie Derick Brassard.

Antti Miettinen scored the shootout clinching goal after defenseman Marek Zidlicky scored before him, which was technically the deciding goal (CORRECTION).

It dawned on me during the shootout, but in July when I sat down with owner Craig Leipold for that huge feature I wrote on him in August, I got a Zidlicky scouting report from Leipold because he used to own Nashville – where Zidlicky came from. I never used the quote (I was going to but then Zidlicky got hurt), so here it is finally. Read the last line, especially.

“Great hands, unbelievable skill moving the puck. He’ll add a really good dimension for this team,” Leipold said.

“I had nothing to do with that one, I mean that truly. Of all the players in Nashville, he was one of the few ones I really haven’t had much dialogue with. Very quiet. But he is a guy who put points up, played the PK.”

Leipold added, laughing, “And the shootout, he’s unbelievable, which is good, because we need shootouts guys.”

Read the rest of this entry »