Good afternoon on yet another gorgeous spring day here in Minneapolis. I've learned this week that all the talk about snowy, cold Minnesota is completely bogus.
Wild is more than ready to open the home schedule Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers. The team is back accustomed to the Central Time Zone, is tired of practicing daily and is ready to resume its NHL schedule with Game 3 and the first at home. Coach Todd Richards said he was extremely happy with the last two days of practice.
Most interesting in my opinion will be those first 10 minutes and how the team readjusts to the speed that only comes in games. After all, it didn't scrimmage this week, and the young, dynamic Oilers can motor.
We have a really nice home opener package for you in Thursday's paper, so take a look in the morning. You can even pick up a Star Tribune if you go to the Wild's Wake-Up Rally from 6-9 a.m. at RiverCentre. Free coffee,. muffins and Coke products, too.
Coffee and a Star Tribune? Nothing better. Speaking of which, today at the arena, the parking ramp was handing out free coffee coupons to Headwaters as payback for all the construction the past month. I don't know if I have a reputation or what, but I walked into practice, and every member of the media and team personnel was handing me coupons.
The catch was you can only redeem the coupon today. Who do they think I am? Juan Valdez. So I only used four coupons and gave the rest to some players.
I'll be hosting a hockeycentric show on 1500ESPN tonight from 6-8, so be sure to tune in and call in, because I'll be taking calls on everything Wild and NHL. Also, among guests are Wild center Matt Cullen, St. Louis Blues defenseman and former Gopher Erik Johnson and Edmonton Journal Hall of Fame hockey writer Jim Matheson. Can't wait to talk to Johnson about his fight the other night for the 2-0 Blues.
Cullen will be right off the top of the show because he's playing Mr. Mom tonight so his wife can attend a function.
I chatted with left wing Andrew Brunette, who missed his second practice in a row today after hurting his hip Monday. He said it's a little of what he went through at the start of last season with the hip, but he said he's not positive he'll play through it in the opener. He said it would be precautionary to make sure it doesn't get worse. He noted that the torn ACL he played through a few years ago was something totally different. At the time, the Wild was battling for a playoff spot, so he would have played through anything. If the ACL happened at the start, he probably would have taken time off.
Richards was much more positive regarding Brunette's potential of playing, but if Brunette is not sure by this afternoon, the Wild will have to call up a forward as insurance. Currently, the only extra player on the roster is on defense (Clayton Stoner, with Marek Zidlicky set to make his season debut), so the Wild needs a forward. Richards said the most logical choice would be Casey Wellman, but if there's a chance the callup doesn't even play or would play limited minutes anyway, it wouldn't shock me if they call up a different forward with a little less of a cap hit.
We'll see later. Richards made it seem like Guillaume Latendresse would move up from the fourth line to play with Mikko Koivu and Antti Miettinen if Brunette can't play.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard continues to look good and progress, and at some point he may need to just jump in and take some contact. It'd be some orchestrated one-on-one battle drills, but he's progressed to the point where he's playing in traffic, which is good.
Richards was real good today talking, especially regarding the question of a sense of urgency tomorrow. He told a story about a conversation he had with someone that ended the conversation, "Good luck. Hopefully you can get things turned around."
Richards thought to himself, "turned around?" They played two games. He noted that the Wild's 0-1-1 and asked how many points the Wild's out of a playoff spot. I said, "one," although it's actually two (math has never been my strong suit).
But Richards said it just goes back to all this negativity surrounding the team since Day One of camp.
"We want to win every game, and it is desperate. ... But it's not as overblown like we're in Game 20 and we're seven points out. We're one point out right now, and we've got three games at home. ... That's the perspective you've got to keep."
This goes back to what I talked about throughout Finland. There was this feeling that the Wild was in Game 50 after the first exhibition game. I think it does have to do with the fact the team's coming off two missed postseasons, having trouble selling seats, the constant chatter of the importance of a fast start and the fact that Richards could be the casualty for a bad start.
While Richards' point is undoubtedly right -- Game 3 is not a must win when you're two points out of playoff spot -- there is a sense of urgency though just because you do have to wonder how patient management and ownership's willing to be if there is a slow start, especially when there's only a couple of quality out-of-work coaches out there and more than a handful NHL coaches on the hot seat.
I feel for Richards because he's trying his darndest and the reality is his overall point is dead-on accurate. The Wild's not 0-30-2. They've gotten one out of a possible four points.
Let's all take a deep breath and chill -- until the end of Game 3, of course. Hey, this is pro sports, so overreacting to wins or losses is part of the deal.
Lastly, I hope you got a chance to read my story on Kurtis Foster today. I got a lot of touching emails and tweets from readers who can't help but root for this guy and his wife, and they deserve it.
Kurtis is undoubtedly one of the nicest, most down-to-earth players I've ever covered. The cool thing about covering the Wild is the incredible access the team allows us to write personality profiles on their players. I've enjoyed several one-on-ones away from the rink with Brent Burns, Mikko Koivu, Nik Backstrom, Cal Clutterbuck, Nick Schultz, Brian Rolston, etc. It goes on and on.
One of the touching was when Foster let me into his hospital room over at Methodist just days after he got back to the Twin Cities after breaking his femur.Here's that article
It really is remarkable that he's not only come back, but has played the way he has. To put last year in perspective, he got a career-high 42 points after breaking his leg, tying for third (with Chris Pronger) among defensemen in the entire league in power-play assists (23) and tied for sixth with a bunch of star defensemen (Doughty, Green, Gonchar, Boyle, Niedermayer) in power-play points (26).
Yes, he was on Tampa Bay's No. 1 power play with Stamkos, Lecavalier and St. Louis, but still, mighty impressive for a guy coming off a shattered femur.
As Nick Schultz said, here's hoping for better days for Foster and his family. Schultz, who is one of Foster's closest friends, said it's just unfair how "bizarre" things just seem to follow him, like for instance, when he's sitting on the Minnesota bench a few years ago minding his own business and Kim Johnsson clanks a puck off his larynx!
That just doesn't happen to most folks.
Anyway, Foster was real classy talking about the Wild, especially about his broken leg, and thanking GM Doug Risebrough, Dr. Joel Boyd and trainer Don Fuller profusely by name. I had to trim that from the article, so I wanted to make sure to get that on the blog.
Talk to you tomorrow, and I'll update blog if I find out today they're calling up a forward. Remember, two hours of Russo Radio tonight on 1500.
