UPDATED: Morning from the bowels of Air Canada Centre, one of the great venues in this great league.
I'll be on HockeyCentral on Sportsnet TV and the Fan 590 in Toronto at 11:40 a.m. CT/12:40 p.m. ET with Doug MacLean and Daren Millard, and tonight, I'll be on NHL Live on NHL Network at 4:30 p.m. CT/5:30 p.m. ET live from the Air Canada Centre penalty box arena cam.
The Wild's lost 10 in a row on the road and 14 of 16 overall. For those fans who wanted more national attention when the Wild was going hot, they'll get it now that they're running cold. ESPN.com, Yahoo and Canadian Press were all at Wild practice yesterday.
Also, tonight's game is coast to coast in Canada on TSN (Gord Miller and Ray Ferraro).
For the first time since Oct. 31, the Wild's not in the top-8 in the West. Mike Yeo said that doesn't stress him out: "It's not how you drive, it's how you arrive."
The Wild just has to pray its car isn't totaled. (I came up with 16 jokes to insert here and that's the one I came up with. Sad, indeed).
Niklas Backstrom, as expected, has fattened up and will make his first start since Jan. 7 – the night he came down with the nastiest stomach virus around and lost a monstrous six pounds (must be tough). Perhaps the rest will have helped because in his previous six starts, he had given up three or four goals in each. I've got him at 1-5 in his last six with a .890 save percentage and 3.54 goals against average (and I got a 690 on the math portion of my SAT's – or was that combined?).
Jonas Gustavsson will be in the cage for the Leafs.
