Wild so deep, Brodziak a rare healthy scratch

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – In five previous seasons with the Wild, Kyle Brodziak had played in 373 of a possible 376 regular-season games and only been a healthy scratch once — Game 3 of the Western Conference quarterfinals last spring.

But three games into this season, Brodziak already has found himself in the press box. With Justin Fontaine ready to make his season debut Friday night against the Ducks, Brodziak was the lineup casualty.

"We're a deeper team," coach Mike Yeo said. "The one thing we want to create is, we want the idea that guys are pushing each other, and so, obviously, we have that right now."

Yeo said he wasn't disappointed with Brodziak's first two games, and he was part of a perfect 7-for-7 penalty kill heading into Friday. But Yeo wanted to get Fontaine onto the second line with Thomas Vanek and Mikko Koivu, which downgraded Matt Cooke to the fourth line. Jason Zucker has played well and scored a big goal last weekend in Denver (and Friday night, too), so Yeo decided to slide the gritty Ryan Carter over to Brodziak's center spot.

"It's just a matter of where other guys fit right now, and we're happy with a lot of other people's games, so the message is pretty simple: Work hard today and get ready for the next one," Yeo said.

Brodziak took the scratch maturely.

"It's a long year, and you've just got to stay positive and keep trying to build your game up as much as you can," he said. "When you have a team that's as deep as we are up front, it is going to create higher competition amongst the team and that's never a bad thing when you have guys that all want to accomplish the same thing and contribute and be a part of it.

Yeo was hoping Fontaine's insertion could spark the Vanek-Koivu duo.

"We're hoping to see that line click," Yeo said. "We're hoping to see that line create a lot 5-on-5. They got the one big goal when we spotted Zuck up there, but then after that, the rest of the game they were pretty quiet.

"I want to see those guys be a threat every time that they're on the ice and when they're not on the attack that they're defending the right way."

Anaheim veteran Dany Heatley was disappointed he couldn't play the Wild because of a groin injury. He scored 47 goals in 194 games with Minnesota the past three seasons. He described his Wild career as being full of "ups and downs," especially since a 24-goal season in 2011-12.

In last season's playoffs, Heatley was scratched the first two games. He started playing in Game 3 of the first round and finished with a goal, five assists and a team-best plus-6 in the playoffs. His saucer pass helped set up Nino Niederreiter's Game 7 OT winner in Denver.

The Wild was the visiting team in the home openers for each of last season's Western Conference division winners. Last Saturday, the Wild spoiled Colorado's Central Division title banner-raising. Friday, the Ducks had their Pacific Division championship banner-hanging.

The Ducks were eliminated in Game 7 of the second round by eventual Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles, though.

"In the end, no matter how great it feels to win the division against the teams that are in our division, if you don't go further than that, nobody cares," Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said.

"It is saying something you won it, but we want no fanfare with that. Hopefully, there will be a bigger banner there some time in the next year."