Lemaire gives a little, but shows who's the boss

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Last update: January 24, 2008 - 9:37 PM

DENVER - Jacques Lemaire admitted Thursday morning that he indeed made a compromise with his top forwards prior to Monday's 4-2 victory in Vancouver, but the Wild coach also made it clear that he still runs the asylum.

"How you're going to play that night, that will determine the ice time you're going to get," Lemaire said tersely before the Wild played Colorado.

The comment was in reaction to questions regarding a Monday morning meeting in which forwards Brian Rolston, Marian Gaborik, Pavol Demitra and Pierre-Marc Bouchard asked Lemaire for more leeway and trust.

According to Rolston in Wednesday's Star Tribune, Lemaire promised to "rotate through guys at the beginning and get us into the game and keep us in the game. ... Good things happen if that's the way he's going to play us."

Thursday, Lemaire, speaking slowly as to choose his words correctly, said, "They don't request a lot of things. I was trying to help them as much as I can and maybe leave my principles aside. That's what I did."

Asked what he meant, Lemaire, grinning, said, "Let's leave it like this. I don't want to get into it."

Asked if he was saying there's a balance between giving players ice and them showing they deserve it, Lemaire said, "Thank you. There you go."

Lemaire seemed to reveal that players are complaining he's shuffling his lines too much, saying, "Against Vancouver, it has to be the game that I used the most combinations. Nobody said, 'I'm not playing with this guy, I don't want to play with this guy.'"

Lemaire then impersonated a child crying for several seconds: "I didn't hear that. They were happy. They're happy because they're proud of their work and we won and they played."

Cooling his jets?

Gaborik will take part in the inaugural Breakaway Challenge during Saturdays SuperSkills Competition as part of All-Star Weekend in Atlanta. Gaborik didn't know if he would partake in the fastest skater competition, which he won at the 2003 All-Star Game.

Gaborik, who has a history of groin problems, wondered if General Manager Doug Risebrough talked to the NHL about keeping him out of the event. Assistant GM Tom Lynn said Risebrough did not. However, Lynn alluded that the team would ask Gaborik to consider other events.

Gaborik's girlfriend, Sona, will accompany him to Atlanta, and he was looking forward to playing against friends Marian Hossa and Zdeno Chara. Asked if he's excited Lemaire won't be yelling at him to get back defensively, Gaborik said, laughing, "I'll have that in the back of my mind always. It should be a fun game. It should be as always a high-scoring game."

Etc.

• Aaron Voros, scratched Tuesday, entered Thursday's game with no points in his past 11 games after 13 in his first 21.

"I obviously did start hot, and everything I touched turned into goals," Voros said. "I'm a little bit cold. But my production is somewhere in the middle. I'm not as unproductive of a player as I have been the past two or three weeks, and obviously I'm not a 40-goal scorer. In order to move forward again, I have to take a couple steps back.''

• Winger Mark Parrish skated Thursday morning but missed his second consecutive game because of a sore foot. Derek Boogaard aggravated his back injury and didn't play. Keith Carney was scratched and replaced by Petteri Nummelin, who was scratched in the previous eight.

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