Lemaire is satisfied this time in victory

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA — The Wild not only sent the Vancouver Canucks home with a miserable feeling Friday night after their first regulation home loss since Feb. 9.

It sent Jason Reitman, the Canadian director of the Oscar-nominated film, "Juno," home feeling blue.

"Juno" was supposed to take place in Minnesota, but wearing an old Canucks Todd Bertuzzi jersey, Reitman told a sold-out GM Place crowd during the first intermission, "To make Minnesota look good, we had to come to Vancouver to shoot it."

Standing up for Minnesotans everywhere, the Wild used a 2-1 victory to snag the two points in a huge Northwest Division clash, the first of eight in a row to end the regular season for the Wild.

"I just love the way we played," said coach Jacques Lemaire. "I think we played hard the whole game. You look at this division -- you see why we're all together. Games could go either way. I'm extremely happy to win this game."

Said Branko Radivojevic on his winning goal: "I saw Pav[ol Demitra] make something out of nothing. He had the puck; it was a perfect pass. It seems I'm getting chances, only now I'm scoring them."

With the victory, the division-leading Wild, 3-0-4 in its past seven, moved three points ahead of the Canucks and the Calgary Flames, who play host to the Minnesota tonight, and nine points ahead of ninth-place Nashville.

A loss to the Canucks, who had won three in a row and were 6-0-3 in their past nine at home, would have given Vancouver the division lead. Instead, the Wild improved to 4-2-1 against Vancouver this season.

"Hopefully we can win the division now," Radivojevic said. "It's going to be so tight, we need every point we can get. "

Brian Rolston also scored, Demitra had two assists and Niklas Backstrom was brilliant with 30 saves.

Said Lemaire on Backstrom: "The last five games, he's really good. He's making the difference."

Todd Fedoruk added: "Back stole this one; he was on fire tonight. He made big game savers."

It was the 100th road win in Wild history, and the team's 19th of the season, tying the franchise record.

This after Lemaire said Friday morning he was concerned how the Wild would come out.

But the Wild, especially 21-year-old Benoit Pouliot, moved the puck well in a fast-moving, tight-checking game.

The Wild took a 1-0 lead when Rolston's shot 4 minutes, 52 seconds into the second deflected off Canucks defenseman Willie Mitchell and over top of Roberto Luongo. It was Rolston's 28th goal, and team-leading 11th power-play goal.

The power play was drawn by Pouliot, the first of two in his best NHL game in parts of two seasons.

The Wild had to begin the third period by killing off Fedoruk's second minor. It was astonishing that the Canucks didn't even attempt a shot despite controlling the puck down low in the Wild zone for much of the power play.

Immediately after, Demitra took advantage of a center-ice turnover, and with Alexander Edler the only Canuck back, and fed Radivojevic with a cross-crease pass for his sixth goal.

Two shifts later, Backstrom robbed Brendan Morrison with a sprawling right pad save, but 10 seconds after Keith Carney took a cross-checking penalty, Sami Salo cut the deficit to 2-1 to make for a tense final 15 minutes.

Lemaire grabbed his BINGO basket, shook it up and unveiled an overabundance of line combinations as he played bruisers Derek Boogaard, Chris Simon and Fedoruk in the same lineup for the first time.

All made impacts in the first period. Luongo denied Fedoruk and Simon on first-period power plays from the goalmouth, Fedoruk drew two penalties and Boogaard threw his weight around -- hammering Mike Weaver, Brendan Morrison and Kevin Bieksa.

StarTribune.com

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