(UPDATED SUNDAY) Russo Curse Ends: Latendresse, Ebbett come through

Happy Sunday to ya: Jaime Sifers and Robbie Earl were sent back to AHL Houston today. The Wild will determine the status of its injured players Monday and decide if it'll need to call players back from Houston. The team hopes to get Martin Havlat and Antti Miettinen back. If Marek Zidlicky is unable to play Wednesday, Sifers will be brought back. Sifers played 19 minutes yesterday and played great.

Good evening from an empty Pepsi Center, where the Wild rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Avalanche tonight.

Beat the Avalanche. On the road. With me covering. Yes, the Wild was winless in 11 with me on the road and 2-0 with Rachel Blount.

I'm no longer winless

Just an outstanding hockey game, and justice prevailed because the only reason the Avalanche was even in this game was Craig Anderson. The goalie kept his gang in the game despite the Wild spending the majority of the first 40 minutes in the Avs end. You want to see the type of forechecking coach Todd Richards wants from this team, get a copy of this game.

Just a gutsy, hard-working effort again without six injured players. I'll write about it for Monday, but when these injured guys return, they better put in the same work or they won't be getting a lot of ice time. Richards said it after.

Three players Chuck Fletcher has acquired recently -- Chuck Kobasew, Guillaume Latendresse and Andrew Ebbett -- just work and work and work, and it's added energy to the group. All the players were talking about it postgame.

Then, in the shootout, Mikko Koivu scored career goal No. 18 and Ebbett, on his first-ever attempt, scored humorously after the puck slipped off his stick. But he got it back and slid it five-hole for the huge goal. The kid's a very good player and had his third-period stab at the tying goal disallowed by Toronto. Mike Murphy, the league's VP of hockey ops, emailed me and said it was ruled he batted the puck in with his glove.

In the first period, the Avs had a goal disallowed because Matt Duchene clearly scored with a high-stick. But Duchene got his goal back after scoring into an open net after Kim Johnsson accidentally clipped Josh Harding.

Oh, Harding. He was a little jittery early, but he settled down real good and made 10 of his 20 stops in the third period. He made two more in the shootout on Svatos and Wolski. Big shorthanded breakaway glove save in the second to rob Paul Stastny and preserve the one-goal deficit. He said Niklas Backstrom's shown him you've got to make "timely saves at big moments."

Blaine's Matt Hendricks, in his first game back after missing six with a groiner, scored a nice goal. I'll throw some quotes on the bottom.

The Wild had to do some last-minute shuffling. As I mentioned on the previous blog, I had doubts Marek Zidlicky would be able to play after watching him and talking to him in the morning. He couldn't skate in the morning skate and was moving around the locker room like a turtle.

Scott only played 3:25, while Sifers, who looked very good, played 19:05 in his first game on the blue line for the Wild. Nineteen minutes! This will be worth keeping an eye on. It's one game, but lately, Richards isn't showing a lot of confidence in an up and down Scott, so could his big-league job be on the line?

Awful news for Colorado, but David Jones tore his ACL in a collision with Kobasew in the third. He'll be out four to six months.

Also, check out my Sunday column here on Colton Gillies and the value of playing down in Houston. I basically use James Sheppard as a comparison. If it's not clear in the column, Sheppard wasn't able to play in the minors this year without waivers because he played his 160th game -- the magic number -- in last year's finale. If he had missed one game due to injury or scratched just one game last year and got below that threshold, he wouldn't require waivers.

Sheppard by the way, outstanding game tonight. Just great. Four shots, big on the forecheck.

The Wild will take Sunday off. I'll be writing about the new guys, how they're fitting in and how there's some pressure now on the Marty Havlat's of the team to add to the work ethic.