Good afternoon from the press room inside the building formerly known as Savvis Center and Kiel Center.

OK, Scottrade Center. They paid good money for naming rights. I might as well give 'em a plug.

Unbelievably productive morning for moi. I got enough interviews done with so many people, I've got stories for a week.

Blues coach and Faribault resident Andy Murray was great on a number of subjects, and had a good line. Both the Blues and Wild have had trouble with slow starts this season. The Blues were outshot 20-3 in the first the other night vs. Pittsburgh. The Wild, on the road trip especially, had slow starts in LA and Anaheim.

"One of us have to start well tonight. The odds are 50-50," quipped Murray, who called the Wild his "second-favorite" team behind the Blues.

Murray likes the Wild team and said he "alerted" the Blues that this Minnesota team is completely different than the one that started 1-6 with the return of Martin Havlat last game and addition of Chuck Kobasew.

"They have one of the best centermen in the league in Koivu, one of the best defensemen even though he's struggling right now in Burns. Johnsson is probably the most underrated defenseman in the league, and Nick Schultz I'd put in that category. Zanon is a good player. Zidlicky is dangerous and they have if not the best goalie in the league, one of the best goalies." I'd assume he's talking about Backstrom there. But with both teams slow out of the gate, he said the teams were "desperate" and need to show "urgency, which are strong words in October." The Wild will wear its Green Third jerseys again tonight, as well as tomorrow against Carolina and in Chicago on VS. on Monday. I got some questions as to how that's possible. Basically all teams can request a jersey change. For instance, a home team may want to promote their white road jerseys in front of the home crowd, so they'll ask the road team to bring their darks. In this case, with the release of the Wild's third, the Wild wanted a blitz of four straight games promoting their thirds, both at home and the road. However, when the Wild had to make its decision on which 15 dates it'd wear the thirds, the TV schedule wasn't out yet, so the Wild apparently didn't know that tonight's game wouldn't be televised in the Twin Cities locally. So now, it sort of makes no sense. But, if you want to watch the game, Center Ice still has its free preview until Saturday, so if you get satellite TV or have a cable box, I'm pretty sure you should get Panger on the St. Louis feed. Darren Pang, aka Panger, was doing his Minnesota homework in the dressing room today knowing he was going to be talking to a Minnesota market as well. Smart dude. Coach Todd Richards said the ice conditions were bad this morning, but "better ice conditions than our place though." So apparently that's still a complaint by the Wild. Petr Sykora got a good skate in this morning. He said he's very close to feeling like he can do everything he needs to do. The Wild will decide tomorrow morning whether he plays tomorrow night at home against Carolina. It's a possibility because I assume the Wild never wanted a guy coming off a groin injury to play back-to-back anyway. Depending on how tonight goes will determine if Josh Harding starts tomorrow's game. But there's no doubt the Wild is hoping for a good Niklas Backstrom performance, as well as a light night as far as workload, so it could come back with him tomorrow. The Wild says it has nothing to do with Harding's slow start and everything to do with the fact the Wild badly needs points and want to use its No. 1 guy. I'm probably doing a Greg Zanon notebook for tomorrow's paper. Richards says he's been maybe Minnesota's best dman, and my buddy, Blues starter and fantasy football superstar (he's go AP in a keeper league) Chris Mason (Zanon's brother from another mother) gave me some good stuff on Zanon from their days in Nashville. Also talked to Derek Boogaard about his fight with David Koci, and I talked to Bloomington's Erik Johnson about his comeback from a torn ACL and MCL. All that and more in the next couple day's paper. OK, I have to write my Sunday column, which you'll want to read on, well I guess, Sunday. Talk to you tonight.