WarpedMind

Yawn.  That describes most of the action in last night's tilt between the Minnesota Wild and the Calgary Flames.  After witnessing inspired, hard hitting efforts against the Anaheim Ducks and the Vancouver Canucks this week, warped minds and tangled brains were hoping this would be the night for the Wild to pull off the rare feat of leaving the Saddledome with two points.  Nope.  Aside from a few brief spurts of intense play, neither team looked all that interested in taking the division lead.  It would've been fitting for the game to go into a shootout, but Craig Conroy spared everyone the tedium of an extra session by slaloming his way through a sleepwalking defense and zipping a backhander by Josh Harding.  A Wild victory would've put them in a nice position heading into the All-Star break, but it was not meant to be.

Warpy awards start with James Sheppard.  He didn't exactly have a spectacular Warpy-worthy game last night, but I forgot to give him props for his impressive play over the last several games, so he gets a delayed Warpy.  Sheppard is a good stickhandler who plays well along the boards (almost as well as "velcro stick" Pierre-Marc Bouchard) and hustles all over the place on the defensive end, playing as solidly as a third defenseman.  Heck, his D is at least as good as -- if not better than -- some other regular defensemen who have a 1 or a 5 on their jersey number.  The strange Warpy of the night has to go to the Brent Burns three goalpost shot.  I've seen a few shots go off both goalposts, but have never seen one hit both posts, then hit the first one again for good measure, with the puck straddling the goal line all the while.  An Espy award would not surprise me in the least for this freakish play.

The Un-Warpy of the night has to go to Jacques Lemaire for once again shuffling his lines and defensive pairings like a casino dealer at a blackjack table, then wondering why he gets such inconsistent play from game to game.  Line combinations that worked well together and got some good results in the Canucks game got scrambled worse than eggs on a bachelor stovetop last night, and it showed in the sloppy passing and tentative play on both ends of the ice.  This is starting to get really old:  if Lemaire still can't figure out the best line combinations after six plus seasons of coaching this team, perhaps it's time to give someone else a try (and that, my friends, will be the topic for at least one future blog by the Warped One).  The strange Un-Warpy of the night goes to the plexiglass at the Saddledome:  where do they get this stuff?  Dalton Humphrey's Everything Store??

Bottom line:  the better team -- or at least the less hypersomnolent one -- won last night.  The Wild skating and passing was uninspired for most of the game, and the shooting was lacking in quantity, though there was some good quality.  The Wild also spent too much time along the side and end boards, making life way too easy for the Flames defenders (not to mention giving warped minds plenty of material for a future blog on the state of Wild shooting, or the lack thereof..)  We missed a good opportunity to unclog the logjam in the division and conference standings last night, and now it's on to Denver for another potential four pointer.  Go Wild!!

What a game Friday between the Minnesota Wild and the Anaheim Ducks (or the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, or the Los Angeles Quacks of Anaheim, or whatever the heck they're calling themselves this month..)  These two teams are developing a lasting dislike for each other, so a physical game was expected, and the boys did not disappoint.  The bodies were flying, shoulders and hips were crunching, and the boards and glass were rattling from a night-long barrage of hard (but clean) checks that conjured up fond memories of hockey played the good, old rugged Canadian way, instead of the fru-fru European ice dancing stuff the NHL is trying to pass off as pro hockey these days.  Both teams gave as good as they got, and in the end, the better team won, though not by as much as the 4-2 score -- or the Pioneer Press article on Saturday -- would indicate.

Lots of Warpy Props awards to go around in this game.  Derek Boogaard made his return to the lineup in this game, and played exceedingly well while getting lots of ice time -- a lot more than expected.  Boogey did a fine job of creating havoc in front of the Ducks net and scored on a fine deflection midway through the first period, only to get jobbed out of his well-deserved marker by a bogus offside call from one of the linesmen.  Boogs threw his fair share of checks, including a real dandy late in the game, and did his part to keep the game civilized.  Props also go to Kurtis Foster and Keith Carney, who continue to demonstrate that they have no business being healthy scratches.  Carney's one-on-one defensive play late in the first period was a thing of beauty, and should be required viewing for anyone interested in learning the art of hockey defense.  I knew the guy was a good plus/minus player for the Wild, but didn't realize he was +162 for his career going into Friday's game.  Jacques Lemaire would have to be a total cementhead to even think of benching Carney again this season, with the possible exception of giving him some rest in the back half of consecutive games to keep his 37 year old body reasonably fresh.  The biggest Warpy props go to the two referees in this game.  The linesmen were awful, but the refs did an excellent job of letting the guys dictate their own play instead of whistling every little ticky-tack infraction.  The players responded by playing a physically tough but exceedingly clean game, which goes to show what an entertaining product the NHL can be when non-playing officials on and off the ice don't insist on screwing up the game.

The un-Warpy award goes to the linesmen in this game.  The offside call that negated the first Wild goal was pathetic.  Not only did the replays clearly show that the play had to have been onside, the linesman who made the call was on the opposite side of the ice and had no look at where the puck was at the time: he had nearly the exact same angle as the replay camera, where the puck wasn't visible at all, but the position of Kim Johnsson's stick blade made it obvious that no part of the puck -- let alone the whole pucking thing -- could've been over the blue line.  The same linesman also "advised" the ref to call a penalty on Marian Gaborik in the second period when the Wild were already a man short.  Gabby was clearly offside on that play, but was more likely yapping about what he thought of the first period offside call.  Presumably, the refs and linesmen have the same access to replays as everone else, and one would hope that the linesman in question took a look at the replay during the first intermission to see what all the booing was about: had he done so, he would've cut the Wild a little slack, but this was not to be the case.  Even the referee looked and sounded apologetic when calling the penalty on Gabby to put the Wild two men down; it was almost like he was saying "I'm only calling this one because I've been backed into a position where I've gotta go to bat for my linesman."

The bottom line: the linesmen did cost the Wild two goals, which was the final margin of the game, but it's hard to pin the Wild loss on them.  The Wild dug themselves a bit of a hole even without the linesmen's help, and could not quite dig their way out.  The red-hot Ducks were the better team, deserved the two points, and demonstrated the fact that they are Stanley Cup champions for a good reason. 

Robtangle's blog has a crisp, clean and complete recap of last night's game against the Vancouver Canucks, so I'll skip the details and go straight to the props, rants and raves.

Huge Warpy props to Pierre-Marc Bouchard for a brilliant performance last night.  It was cool to see the guy who does the best work grinding along the boards, and leads the team in assists -- no coincidence there -- get a chance to light the lamp a couple of times.  Honorable Warpys to Mikko Koivu for his fine goal plus stylish followup war whoop while passing the Canucks bench, and also to Niklas Backstrom for a rock-solid night in nets.

Not much in the way of un-Warpys in this game; the only one I can really think of is the reduced ice time for Boogey in this game, including a total disappearing act in the third period.  I'm not sure if Boogey's back prevented him from going much in this game, or if Lemaire just decided to deep-six his main physical threat against a team that needs an intimidator around to keep things civilized, but either way, it was kind of a letdown.

Bottom line: the Wild played another fine game last night.  Ironically, they probably played much better hockey Friday night against Anaheim than they did last night, but wound up on the good side of the 4-2 final score this time around.  It helps that their opponent last night wasn't a Stanley Cup champ team in the middle of a blazing roll -- the Wild made the Canucks look decidedly average, which is not easy to do on the road.  It won't get any easier tonight when the Wild go to Calgary to play the nemesis Flames with Iggy and company; they'll need to break out their A-game for this tilt.  Go Wild!!

What a strange game last night.  The Minnesota Wild, on a roll and presumably well rested after two off days at home, put in a surprisingly dull effort against what should have been a travel-weary Calgary Flames squad.  The Flames consistently outskated, outworked and outshot a Wild team that looked sloppy almost from start to finish.  Stranger yet, perennial Wild killer Jarome Iginla was kept off the scoreboard for the entire game, only to come through with the finishing dagger in the shootout.

Now for the props, rants, and pet peeves:

Props to Kurtis Foster for an inspired performance after being inserted into the lineup.  Kurt used his size to his advantage last night, and was one of the few to (gasp) throw some checks at opposing players.  His cannon slapshot goal was a thing of beauty as well.  At first I thought he was holding the puck too long -- 18,568 at the X no doubt felt the same -- but Foster calmly waited for a Calgary defenseman to oblige him with a screen in front of the net.  From Miikka Kiprusoff's reaction (or lack thereof in this case) the quality of the screen was right up there with the Mark Parrish Special that Wild fans are growing to love.  Huge props are also in order for Niklas Backstrom, who delivered an excellent performance on short notice.  Backs filled in more than adequately for the injured albeit red-hot Josh Harding, coming up with several titanic saves to keep his team in the game.  The Wild defenders didn't exactly do him any favors on the two goals the Flames got in regulation, and also did their best to hose him in overtime.  The first SO goal he gave up wasn't the greatest, but by then the Wild already had one point more than they deserved, thanks mostly to Nik's stellar goaltending, along with a couple of referee assists thrown in for good measure.  Final props go to Iggy for his SO goal -- now that was a sweet goal scorer's shot.

As for ranting, the player who drew the most gerunds last night invoking Fornication Under Consent of the King has to be Kim Johnsson.  Johnsson (among other players) appears to be allergic to bodily contact.  This is fine at a Greyhound bus depot, but not a desirable quality in a defenseman.  Instead of delivering a check -- or at least positioning himself to get in a puck carrier's way -- Johnsson remains content to wave a pansyass stick check in the player's direction, not only allowing the guy to keep the puck, but putting himself at the mercy of whistle-happy refs who insist on calling every ticky-tack hook and slash under the sun.  I can't believe Jacques Lemaire hasn't gotten it through this guy's head to play the man first.  A dishonorable mention to Lemaire for being dumb enough to throw the defensive pairing of Kim Johnsson and Martin Skoula out on the ice for the last minute in a tightly contested overtime.  If the Stanley Cup is awarded to the coach who puts on the biggest show of balls, Lemaire just cemented it for the Wild with that move last night; otherwise, one has to wonder what the hell he was thinking.

The usual pet peeves came up in this game, and don't appear to be going away soon.  Jacques Lemaire needs to pick some line combinations and defensive pairings, then stick to them so they have a chance to jell.  If he had been doing that already, the sudden unavailability of Mark Parrish would only have necessitated one tweak.  As it is, Lemaire kept monkeying around with various lines and pairings trying to find a working combo, and it showed in the sloppy passing all night long, not to mention the odd collision or three of Wild players who were not on the same page.  Lemaire also needs to get guys to play the man instead of poking around like a bunch of European ballerinas.  If the guys here can't or won't do it, it's time to make a call to Houston to see if they have any more Aaron Voros type players on their roster.  With a bunch of critical division and conference games coming up, we'll need Derek Boogaard plus all the toughness we can get, and then some.