If the Wild ever gets its wish granted to switch divisions to the Central, Blues coach Andy Murray has volunteered St. Louis as the Wild's chief rival.
Last season, Murray, a Faribault resident and former Shattuck-St. Mary's coach, infuriated the Wild when he launched several postgame grenades at enforcer Derek Boogaard, saying in part, "Tell Derek I'm a fan of his. I want Jacques [Lemaire] to play him more."
After Friday's exhibition game in St. Louis, Murray went after the Wild again, accusing Lemaire of running up Wednesday's preseason game by having "all of their power-play guys on the ice to get the seventh goal" in a 7-0 victory and saying that if Boogaard's going to go after the Blues' skilled players "then some of their guys need to be on alert."
Asked if that concerned him (the Blues and Wild play Oct. 20), General Manager Doug Risebrough said, "I'm never interested in what Andy Murray says. Andy Murray likes to be heard, but one person that doesn't listen to Andy Murray is me."
Boogaard says he's tired of Murray screaming at him from the Blues bench, saying: "He's the most disrespectful coach. All he does is yell and scream and curse at [opposing] players. It probably makes me run around even more, you know?... I mean, can you even imagine Jacques yelling at other players? It's because he respects other players and played the game."
Murray was angry Friday when Boogaard punched veteran Doug Weight during the second period. But the Wild contends that Boogaard was reacting to Weight's two-handed slash to his wrist.
"You know Doug Weight is a great player. I've got a lot of respect for him. He's been good everywhere he went," Lemaire said. "But you know what? You don't go after the big guys and try to show you're going to beat them up. Just play the game. [Boogaard] won't hit you. [Boogaard] won't touch you.
"Boogey's not the type of guy to run after the skilled guys. He goes to the tough guy on the other side, 'You want to go, we'll go. You don't want to go, we'll wait.' But a two-handed slash [from Weight]? Just reverse the role there. Boogey might not just be suspended, he might be in prison."
As for Murray's contention that he ran up Wednesday's game, Lemaire said, "He wanted me to put Boogey on the power play? I played [James] Sheppard and people like that. Tell him to look at the tape again."
Guaranteed to tear
Boogaard won't be getting an endorsement deal now, but as he predicted earlier in camp, his jersey tore Sunday during his first training camp scrap with Chicago's David Koci.
"I told you it would," Boogaard said. "Oh well. If somebody gets hurt, it's Reebok's fault. They're the ones that told us it wasn't going to rip."
The new NHL sweaters rip so easily, trainers plan to bring several Boogaard jerseys on the road.
Fight big or go home
• Angry at what he felt was a slew foot, the Wild's Dominic Moore picked one of the strongest players in the NHL to fight Sunday, Martin Lapointe. "The guy's the bench-press champ of the league," Moore said.
• Defenseman Kurtis Foster continues to ice his sore groin, which felt terrible when he skated Saturday. "I'm very frustrated," Foster said.
Michael Russo • mrusso@startribune.com
wild/nhl
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