Bouchard ready for a tall order

Look at the numbers and you can see a trend. Pierre-Marc Bouchard is second on the Wild with 63 points, but he scored only 13 goals. Bouchard is a facilitator, a creator. With a franchise-record 50 assists, he is a professional helper.

Now he needs to help himself.

Ask him. Bouchard will tell you he had a better season than last year. The player who came to the Wild as an 18-year-old rookie and first-round draft choice in 2002 has improved his game. But he'll also agree that more is needed. Bouchard, a finesse player in the best sense of the word, needs to prove he can produce in the playoffs, where grit rules.

Nobody knows this more than Bouchard. Who, after a question and a long pause, said: "It's a big month ahead of me, and I realize it. Last year was a big experience for me. It was a tough experience, but a good one. Now I feel like it's going to be important for me to do more to help the team win."

Last season, Bouchard entered the playoffs tied for third on the team with 57 points and was one of five players with at least 20 goals. But against the eventual Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks, Bouchard scored once and had one assist in five games.

He was not alone in his struggles. Indeed, one of the themes of the upcoming playoff series with Colorado is that the Wild, from top to bottom, will have learned from the experience of last year.

But for Bouchard, it's time to apply that lesson. He enters the team second in points and a plus-11, tied for third with four game-winning goals. But there have been droughts: a 17-game stretch that began in mid-November; an 18-game drought that ended with his goal against Vancouver on March 28.

When it comes to Bouchard, it's time for April showers.

Bouchard was a bit player in the Wild's playoff run his rookie year. The 2007 playoffs were his first real postseason experience, and it opened his eyes.

"It was hard," Bouchard said. "When you're an offensive player and you're supposed to help the team score goals and it's not coming? It's hard. It was a tough series. Frustrating. But sometimes you learn from a bad experience. And I learned it's a different game in the playoffs. It's a different level. There is more intensity, there is more emotion. It's more physical."

At 5-10 and 171 pounds, Bouchard is one of the smaller players in the league. Is that too small to be effective in the physical playoffs?

"To be honest, I just see it the same way I did all my life," he said. "These playoffs will be another chance to prove people wrong about size, that I can play at that level and do a good job. There are good examples in the past, guys who played a big role and were not big guys. Martin St. Louis, the year [Tampa Bay] won the Cup."

St. Louis -- at 5-9, 185 pounds -- has 23 goals and 48 points in 45 career playoff games. In Tampa Bay's run to the Cup in 2004, he had nine goals and 24 points.

''It's all about how hungry you are," St. Louis said. ''You have to raise your level of intensity. You have to become a more physical player yourself."

A contract could be in play

It appears the Wild is waiting to see how Bouchard answers the playoff challenge. The team has made some significant signings this season. Wild General Manager Doug Risebrough signed defenseman Brent Burns to a long-term deal based mainly on his potential. Risebrough signed Nick Schultz based on what the now-veteran defenseman has become.

Bouchard has been signed to one-year deals since his original rookie contract. If the Wild doesn't sign him to a long-term contract, he could become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2009.

"I will say this: In the cap system, you have to be selective on your long-term contracts," Risebrough said. "Because they're all guaranteed."

So a team has to be sure. Which again points to the upcoming postseason being a big one for Bouchard.

He knows what he needs to do, what the team wants him to do. St. Louis articulated it perfectly. "Playoff-wise, you won't have much success on the perimeter," St. Louis said. "They'll let you stay there. You have to get gritty."

Said Risebrough: "We'd like him to shoot more. Attack the net more. The idea here is pretty simple: I don't know a lot about baseball, but if you have a curve and a fastball and you throw one all the time, they'll hit it. You need to mix it up. Staying outside, trying to make great plays, becomes a way they'll check him."

This is especially important in a playoff series when adjustments come game to game.

"You don't change your game dramatically," Risebrough said. "But you have to adjust your game. Shooting when people think pass, attacking the net when they think pass. He knows what I'm talking about."

Everybody does.

NBC/TSN analyst Pierre McGuire brought it up on a teleconference Monday. ''The way Minnesota plays and the fact they play a lot of one-goal games, Pierre-Marc Bouchard isn't going to be there on his defensive tendencies, but rather his offensive scoring," McGuire said. "He has to deliver. Everyone will focus on [Marian] Gaborik, which they should. But Pierre-Marc Bouchard has to step up. ... [He] hasn't done anything in the playoffs yet and so that's the biggest key for me."

Driving the point home

Wild coach Jacques Lemaire has talked to Bouchard about this, too. A lot, by the sounds of things.

"He has to keep digging and pushing," Lemaire said. "We've told him enough. We can't tell him every day."

And so, as the Wild prepare for the playoffs, Bouchard keeps telling himself to drive into the fray.

"This is important for me, and I don't say this contract-wise or free agency-wise," Bouchard said. "At times I play maybe too much on the outside, try to make plays. Like, I make a pass and sometimes I get the puck back and try to make a better play. Maybe when I pass the puck I should go to the net for a scoring chance. If I do that, I think my game will be better."

Brian Rolston has skated on a line with Bouchard for much of his three seasons with the Wild. In his opinion, Bouchard's success is, perhaps more than with anyone on the Wild, dependent on his confidence. To Rolston, Bouchard is at his best when Lemaire shows confidence in him. Lemaire said Bouchard's play in recent games -- particularly on the defensive end -- has earned him more minutes.

"When Butch gets his confidence, he can be the best guy on the ice," Rolston said.

And Bouchard is confident his playoff production is about to improve.

"I knew last year I had to step up my game," he said. "I was working hard, trying to skate faster. But sometimes it's tougher, you know? As a team we didn't create much. Personally, I would have liked to do better. But I have this year to redeem myself. It will be fun."