Wild Hearts Burn After Tie With Canucks
by Ben Kruse

Sunday October 19, 2003

The game started off with rivalry but ended with disappointment. The Minnesota Wild skated to a 2-2 tie with division foe Vancouver after giving up a power-play goal late in the third period. For the players and coaches, it was a goal that was hard to swallow.

“It’s like a bad pizza,” remarked Coach Jacques Lemaire. “Stays all night, while you sleep. Your heart burns.” The Wild went into the third period with a 2-1 lead, and came out playing defense. Eight third period penalty minutes helped Vancouver rack up twelve shots-on-goal to Minnesota’s two. The final Wild penalty was assessed to Sergei Zholtok for slashing with 2:27 left to play, which led to Henrik Sedin’s game-tying goal.

“When your looking for wins,” Lemaire commented, “you have to control penalties.” One of the penalties Jacques didn’t agree with. “Brown’s was not a penalty.” Brad Brown was given a boarding penalty after he hit Vancouver’s Brad May against the boards at the end of the second period. Lemaire said that Brown simply fell down.

Rivalry
If cold pizza was Lemaire’s midnight snack, Todd Bertuzzi was the crowd’s main course. From the player introductions to the last minute of play, every time Bertuzzi’s face was displayed, every time his stick touched the puck, a chorus of boos came tumbling down from the seats. The only time the fans cheered for Bertuzzi was when he was called for high-sticking in the third period.

Bertuzzi added fuel to hockey’s youngest rivalry during last year’s Western Conference Semi-finals after saying, before game six, that there wouldn’t be a game seven in Minnesota. When there was a game seven, Bertuzzi became the enemy number one for Wild fans everywhere.

Some players said that Vancouver is just another team. When asked about the Canucks, Jim Dowd said that the Wild have a “rivalry with every team in our conference.”

However, on the ice, the team looked more physical then they had all year. Many checks turned into shoving matches. Unfortunately for fight fans, the refs came into cool things down before anything interesting got started.

Sloppy Play
The Wild continued to struggle offensively in the first period. Bad passes and poor puck handling led to only five shots in the first. “The worst: it’s not the young guys,” said Lemaire on his team’s errors. However, on the defensive side of the ice, Minnesota was sharp. They broke up scoring chances, cleared pucks, and intercepted passes, giving up only seven shots-on-goal in the first two periods. This all changed in the third period when four Minnesota penalties was turned into twelve shots by the Canucks power play. “They shoot from everywhere, “ said Lemaire. Lemaire said after the game that he simplified the strategy and that he was happy with his team, “but not the result.”

Scoring
The Wild gave up their first goal to Marcus Naslund with two minutes left in the first period. Jim Dowd tied it up four minutes into the second period on a power play. Matt Johnson scored his second goal of the season five minutes later. The Canucks tied the game up again on a Henrik Sedin power play goal with less than two minutes left in regulation. A puck ended up in the nets in overtime, but officials called it a no goal. While shooting at Roloson, the Canucks’ Brendon Morrison inadvertently kicked the puck in with his skate. Officials on the ice waved off the goal, but still had video officials take a second look.

Game Notes

• Matt Johnson is tied with Alexandre Daigle for most goals on the team with two.
• Zholtok got his club-leading fourth assist on Saturday, which also tied him for most points with Pierre-Marc Bouchard.
• The warm weather may have had something to do with the sloppy play on Saturday. Players trying to breakaway with the puck would find themselves skating faster that the puck would go. If the ice acted like that here, how can they possibly get a good sheet in Dallas?
• The first really good check of the game wasn’t into the boards, but the net. Matt Cooke knocked Willie Mitchell into the Minnesota goal, dislodging it from its moorings. Needless to say, pushing and shoving soon followed.
• Vancouver radio announcer Tom Larschied was lamenting about the lack of shooting after the first period. The Canucks played in Detroit on Thursday and both teams combined for 30 shots-on-goal in the first period. When asked to come up with an adjective for this game’s first period, all Tom could do was sigh and say: “Murder.”
• Some fans might miss former TV play-by-play man Mike Goldberg, but some of the Fox Sports Net crew do too. New guy Matt McConnell forgot his earpiece, or what broadcasters call an IFB, downstairs and had done most of the pre-game without it. One crewmember was heard to say: “This never happened to Goldberg, he was a professional.”