Roster Set for October 8 Opener
by Chris Thompson

Monday October 6, 2003

A grueling nine game exhibition schedule has ended and the Minnesota Wild, sans two key players, are set to open their fourth regular season Wednesday night in Chicago against the Blackhawks.

Final roster cuts were made over the weekend with three forwards demoted to the Houston Aeros. They were Bill Muckalt, Stephan Veilleux and Matt Foy. Muckalt is a veteran who started last season strong before suffering an injury that wiped out most of the rest of his season. He hasn't found the groove he was in again, so Wild management is hoping some regular playing time in Houston will help him find his "A" game again.

Veilleux and Foy are both young players who had excellent camps. However, Minnesota's philosophy going into the game was that a young player would have to play substantially better than a veteran to take away a job. With most of the team's veterans coming into camp in better shape than they were last season, that proved a difficult task. So Foy and Veilleux will go back to Houston and try to improve their games even more. But Wild fans should feel confident that they will be ready to step into the lineup should their numbers be called.

So who pushed them out? Christoph Brandner, Brent Burns and Alexandre Daigle. Brandner, who will be the first Austrian skater to ever play in the NHL, cracked the team as a 28 year old rookie after a spectacular 2002-03 campaign in Germany. While he has never skated on regulation NHL ice before this season, he has quickly made the adjustment and had a very impressive preseason, scoring three goals.

Burns, the Wild's surprise first round pick, surprised Wild fans once again by sticking on the Wild's final roster going into the season. This despite a protracted contract situation that allowed him to practice but not play with the team until the final preseason game. A converted defenseman who now plays RW, Burns has seen his game grow faster than Jack's beanstalk, going from the 4th line of his OHL club to making the Minnesota Wild in less than a year. This marks the second consecutive year and third year out of four that the Wild's young #1 pick made the team straight out of training camp. Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Marian Gaborik were the others.

CAPTAINS ANNOUNCED
The Wild also announced the team's Alternate Captains for the 03-04 season. They are Jim Dowd and Andrew Brunette. The team's regular captaincy rotates month to month and will be awarded for October in Tuesday's practice. Wild defenseman Nick Schultz talked about the rotating "C" today at the Wild's annual kickoff luncheon. "It's such an honor to be a captain in the NHL," he said, "I think sometimes when you're captain for a whole season, you maybe forget that a little. I think this keeps it special for people."

The rotating captain title was the idea of head coach Jacques Lemaire. It has been in place from the beginning of the Wild and really gives players who don't ordinarily stand out to the fans the chance to be seen and appreciated.

INJURY UPDATE
Forward Richard Park was injured at the end of the preseason and will begin the season on the injured list for the Wild. He suffers from a stretched knee ligament and will likely miss two to three weeks of action. When he returns, another player will have to be taken off the roster. Roster spots also need to be cleared if/when Marian Gaborik and Pascal Dupuis sign.

HOLDOUT UPDATES
Wild fans continue to hope for some headway in the contract situations with Gaborik and Dupuis. The team isn't too far apart with agent Alan Walsh on Dupuis' contract, but remains miles apart on the contract for Gaborik. Wild fans who once supported the Gaborik camp in his holdout, are now starting to turn on Walsh when they see that he has an eye popping four players holding out. In addition to Gaborik and Dupuis, Martin Havlat of the Senators and Marc-Andrew Fleury of the Penguins are also represented by Walsh and holding out. At the moment, WildOnIce.net knows of only one other player holding out in the NHL...Edmonton's Mike Comrie. So four of the five NHL holdouts are represented by the same agent? Maybe this isn't management's fault after all folks!!!

@ CHICAGO
Wednesday's season opener begins at 7:00 from the United Center in Chicago. The game will be broadcast on ESPN, as well as on WCCO 80AM on the radio.