Lemaire nuggets; Burns traveling; Gushing about the Devils, and hatred of the Sioux

Sorry for the delay. I just lived an all-too real Family Guy episode, so I wanted to look it up on YouTube, and next thing you know, I watched about an hour's worth of Family Guy YouTube clips.

They were funny. Did you know that the Bird is the Word?

Sooooooooooooooooooooo, the Wild special guest trip technically starts today, so a lot of fathers and family members were down at the arena watching the skates and will attend tonight's game vs. the DEVILSSSSSSSS (David Puddy, Seinfeld). The Wild will head to Chicago after practice tomorrow (although I've been told a big win will likely get practice scrapped, or actually it's vice versa. A horrible loss will get practice put on, I understand. So, a little motivation for the boyz).

On the supersized charter tomorrow will be several fathers or mentors of players. It's being billed as a special guest trip. About four or five players will be joined by others, like brothers or father-in-law's (don't think that's proper way of saying that), etc.

Good news: Brent Burns is going on the trip. It's uncertain right now if he'll practice or if it's just so he can spend the trip with his father. But a good sign? He's got his locker back in the locker room. Clayton Stoner was occupying Burns' locker, but he's moved to Chuck Kobasew's.

Wild will go with the same lineup tonight, it appears, unless Stoner says after warmups his groin is good enough to go. If that's the case, John Scott will be out. Nik Backstrom vs. the always-affable Marty Brodeur. His son will be at the game. Anthony's a freshman 'tender at Shattuck-St Mary's.

Richards said today's skate started slow, but it got better and the team had a lot more energy than yesterday's practice. It was kind of a weird skate. I've got to say, it was pretty quiet. Much quieter than most.

As usual, Lou Lamoriello's put together another great room with guys like former UND star Zach Parise (labeling it that because a reader today accused me of hating UND, and in actuality that we at the Star Tribune have a "policy" of not naming UND when a player played there. Being the longtime Minnesotan that I am, he's right. I have an immense hatred for the Fighting Sioux. It keeps me up at night. I have a dartboard with Jonathan Toews' face on it), two of my favorite players that I've ever covered, Brian Rolston and Rob Niedermayer, Brodeur, Jamie Langenbrunner, etc., etc, etc. I'll write a lot about Rolston for tomorrow.

Got to chat this morning with NJ asst. Mario Tremblay, and he's as funny as always. Jacques Lemaire was great, too.

(Just dawned on me: I'm shocked all these Devils Minnesotans and Americans are playing so well, you know, since Lemaire hates Minnesotans, and especially those darn Americans. Weird).

Speaking of Jacques, I asked Richards about going against Jacques, and yes, it was that poorly-phrased: "Well, first off. I'm not going against Jacques. It's not me against him. It's not an arm-wrestling match. He'd probably beat me. It's NJ Devils against the Minnesota Wild. He's going to be honored tonight, which he should be, with everything he accomplished here and everything he's done to help this franchise along. It's well-deserved."

Richards talked often at the start of the year about how he noticed very clearly how well-schooled the Wild was defensively, which he appreciated because that's the hardest part of the game to teach. He did the same again today.

First, before last season, opposing teams used to walk by the Wild locker room to get to the visitors' room. The Wild didn't think that was appropriate, especially the fraternization that used to go on. So Jacques started to make teams walk three-quarters the way around the arena to get to the visitors' room.

That rule's still in place, so Jacques couldn't go by the Wild room: "I could not go through there. I had to go around. Now they use it on me."