Wild wins without giving its best effort

Despite being spurred on during a morning skate, the Wild played sluggishly at times vs. Phoenix but still won a record seventh straight.

By Kent Youngblood, Star Tribune

Last update: March 21, 2007 - 12:47 AM

So why was Jacques Lemaire yelling?

It was a morning skate before Tuesday night's game with Phoenix, a time to loosen up, not lay it on. But there was Lemaire, the Wild coach, spurring his team to work, work.

Why?

Worry. As Lemaire said, worrying is what coaches do. They worry at work, worry at home, go to bed and dream about worrying. Lemaire didn't want his team being unfocused the first game back from a road trip or looking at last-place Phoenix and relaxing.

Turns out they might have done both. The good news is that it didn't matter. The Wild played about 50 minutes of fairly solid hockey, and against the Coyotes, that was enough for a 3-2 victory.

But it came after the Wild had built a 3-0 lead through two periods, after the Wild opened the third trying to make fancy passes rather than solid hits. And after a couple of Phoenix power-play goals less than 3 minutes apart midway through the third forced everyone at Xcel Energy Center to worry over the game's final minutes.

So afterward, Lemaire didn't want to talk about a franchise-record seventh consecutive victory. Or that it gave the Wild 43 victories, another record. Or that it pushed the Wild from seventh to fifth in the Western Conference playoff chase, one point ahead of San Jose, one behind Northwest Division-leading Vancouver.

"I'm going to leave that to you," he said in the post-game press conference. "I want a solid game from our guys. I'm trying to get three periods, solid. And if I don't, well, I'm entitled to let them know it. It's my right to let them know I'm not happy. Because you accept [just] two periods, then you have to accept one. After that you'll have to accept defeat. That's how it goes."

Lemaire called it a sour two points. In the dressing room, the players weren't exactly celebrating, either.

"We've been on the road a long time, we got home and we think it's going to be a little bit of an easy game," said Pavol Demitra, who scored a goal and had an assist. "We try to be fancy and this is what happened."

Good thing the Wild showed a sense of timing while opening a 3-0 lead; all three goals came in the closing seconds of periods one and two.

The first goal came in the waning seconds of the first period, and it was started by Marian Gaborik.

The Wild had spent the first period creating opportunities but not following through. But, in the closing seconds, Gaborik used his speed to score the game's first goal.

The puck came to Gaborik near his blue line after bouncing off a skate. He raced up the right wing, then cut toward the slot, twisting Coyotes defenseman Derek Morris into a pretzel in the process.

Gaborik launched a wicked wrist shot that Curtis Joseph got a left pad on, but Demitra was there to bury the rebound.

A lackluster second period ended with the Wild scoring twice 20 seconds apart in the final period. The first came from Todd White, who one-timed a pass from Pierre-Marc Bouchard past Joseph on the power play. Then Gaborik scored at 19:37. He got a pass from Demitra and appeared to fan on the shot. Gaborik said the puck went off the heel of his stick, but it might have gone off his skate or a pad. Either way the goal, upon review, held up for a 3-0 lead.

The Wild needed it. Playing against a team with nothing to lose -- something the Wild will see a lot of down the stretch -- the Wild relaxed and the Coyotes took advantage.

A few untimely penalties led to two power-play goals; a Niko Kapanen redirect spoiled Backstrom's shutout at 7:53. Less than 3 minutes later Bill Thomas buried a rebound of Travis Roche's slapshot.

"We're lucky we stabilized in the last seven minutes," Lemaire said. "We started to dump pucks, forecheck, play our game. If we would have kept playing like we did prior to that? They would have tied it, and maybe win."

But perhaps something can be learned from this.

"It's a good lesson to us on handling these situations," said goaltender Niklas Backstrom, who went 3-0 with a 0.67 goals-against average against Phoenix this season.

Kent Youngblood • kyoungblood@startribune.com

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