Game #54: Minnesota Wild at Columbus Blue Jackets, Tuesday February 7, 2012 at 6:00pm (CST), Nationwide Arena [GAME PREVIEW]

    
Super Bowl 46, two great teams coming down to the wire in the ultimate game, even to the last play of the game.  Any fan of sports wouldn’t want a championship any other way.  No one wants to see a one-sided blowout like you did with the National Title game in college football between LSU and Alabama.  You want it to be a battle, otherwise the victory doesn’t seem quite as sweet.  It is anti-climatic.  I think the average fan who didn’t really care who won, got what they wanted in this great game that saw the New York Giants prevail 21-17.  The Minnesota Wild should expect a battle tonight against the Blue Jackets. 

When you compare the statistics, one thing that jumps out is how amazingly similar (in some ways at least) the teams are.  Goals For and Power Play are virtually identical, both being amongst the worst in the league in their respective category.  However, what has haunted Columbus from the beginning have been its defense and goaltending is again the main reason why the Blue Jackets have the worst record in the league by 12 points (the next worst team is Anaheim with 46 points).  Like the Wild, the Blue Jackets are a goal-starved team and injuries have conspired to deprive them of some of their more gifted offensive players in Jeff Carter, R.J. Umberger and Kristian Huselius as well as big off season blueline acquisition in James Wisniewski.  Team captain Rick Nash finds himself trying to carry the offensive load by himself but its been a long struggle where the Blue Jackets ugly 3.25 goals allowed per game have been tough to overcome and Nash has the worst +/- at a -21.  Just to put that in perspective, his -21 ranks him for 836th in the league!  Only Carolina’s Eric Staal and his -24 is worse.  Nash’s only real help offensively has been unsung veteran Vinny Prospal but beyond that there is little else that the Blue Jackets can rely upon.  Grinder and tough guy Derek Dorsett uses hustle, physicality and just about everything else he can to rally his team but there have been too many nights where the only ‘fight’ in the Blue Jackets has been from the former Medicine Hat winger.  In many ways, Dorsett has supplanted Jared Boll in the role of the team’s sparkplug but you can bet he will be a player looking to deliver hits, and dropping the gloves if he feels his team needs a boost.  Another player who will likely be a bit amped for tonight’s game is former Wild winger and 1st round pick Colton Gillies.  By all accounts Gillies was a bust for the Wild who couldn’t even manage to use him as a grinding 4th line winger but I have little doubt he’ll probably have a little more spark for tonight’s game and some Wild fans are already predicting that he may even score a goal which has been a rare occurrence throughout most of his professional career. 

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   Will Todd Richards have his revenge tonight?

Yet the person who will likely be the most focused to try to defeat the Wild is former Head Coach Todd Richards who is serving as the interim bench boss for the Blue Jackets.  After stepping into that role after the axe fell on Scott Arniel, Richards (not surprisingly) has not brought about some incredible turn around of the Blue Jackets’ fortunes.  Wild fans will never forget the optional practices, the weak excuse of “we’ll look at the tape” after poor efforts but Richards will be determined to bring his best (whatever that is) to give the local fans some good feelings and put a dent into the Wild’s push for the post-season.  If there is one thing Richards’ has working for him is that traditionally the Wild have struggled to win in Columbus.  The Wild are 6-13-1 all time at Nationwide Arena but they did earn a 4-2 victory in Columbus on November 15th (knock on wood). 

How bad is it getting in Columbus?   I have to say the news that some Blue Jackets fans actually protested outside of their arena over what they feel has been gross mismanagement over the years.  The fans want to see the team give the axe to General Manager Scott Howson and Team President Mike Priest as well as some vitriol to team owner John P. McConnell.  In all honesty, I don’t blame them for being frustrated.  As much as Wild fans have complained about their coaching and their former GM Doug Risebrough, even Risebrough looked good in comparison to Blue Jackets’ management.  The blown draft picks; like Nikolai Zherdev, Gilbert Brule, Alexandre Picard, and Nikita Filatov as well as failures in free agency have made for 11 seasons of mostly mediocrity.  I can see why these fans would launch a protest.  Although I also wouldn’t begrudge Blue Jackets fans for wanting to storm the NHL’s front office after the hockey version of ‘Clockgate’.  This article by Justin Bourne provides a unique perspective as to what happened.  Check it out here.  Needless to say, the natives are getting restless and it won’t take much for the home crowd to turn on its team if the Wild get things rolling right off the start. 

The Wild appear to be re-establishing the type of resilient play that typified their hot start to the 2011-12 season.  Minnesota is winning more of the races for the loose pucks and out working their opponents along the wall and that is translating into more goals and thus more wins.  The Wild must realize they’re playing a mentally fragile team, and if they can put up a few goals early the Blue Jackets are likely to fall apart.  The worst thing Minnesota can do is play lazy and allow the Blue Jackets to gain confidence.  The race to be a part of the Western Conference playoff picture is immensely tight as you can see here.

1. Detroit Red Wings ~ 53GP (35-17-2) 72pts
2. Vancouver Canucks ~ 52GP (32-15-5) 69pts
3. San Jose Sharks ~ 50GP (29-15-6) 64pts
4. Nashville Predators ~ 53GP (32-16-4) 68pts
5. St. Louis Blues ~ 51GP (30-14-7) 67pts
6. Chicago Blackhawks ~ 53GP (29-17-7) 65pts
7. Los Angeles Kings ~ 53GP (25-18-10) 60pts
8. Minnesota Wild ~ 52GP (25-19-8) 58pts
9. Dallas Stars ~ 51GP (27-22-8) 56pts
10. Phoenix Coyotes ~ 53GP (24-21-8) 56pts
11. Calgary Flames ~ 53GP (24-22-7) 55pts

The Wild are coming off a tough 2-1 shootout loss to Dallas where the team really didn’t play that badly.  In fact, it probably deserved to win the game.  Yet as we all know, what you deserve doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get it.  The line of Kyle Brodziak, Nick Johnson and Dany Heatley were effective at creating scoring chances and had an impact almost every shift they had.  Team captain, Mikko Koivu is expected to return from injury.  Now do you break up this top line which has shown terrific chemistry or do you snub your #1 center by putting him on the 2nd line to keep that chemistry in place?  Personally I’d keep Brodziak, Johnson and Heatley together since this seems to have really brought out the best in Dany Heatley.  Koivu might be just the right catalyst to get more out of Devin Setoguchi who has struggled on a line with Matt Cullen and Cal Clutterbuck.  At the very least, Koivu’s return should give Minnesota the two scoring lines it has sorely missed throughout its free fall in the standings.  Erik Christensen had a decent Wild debut, but he could find himself as the 4th line center and will he be effective in that role?  Christensen’s game on Saturday was his first action since mid-December and he does have a very quick release but he is not an energy line type of player. 

Defensively, the Wild had a good performance from its young core of defenseman like Nate Prosser (whom the club recently signed to a 2-year, one-way contract extension), Justin Falk and Jared Spurgeon.  Veteran Greg Zanon seems to be playing better and being back to his shot blocking ways.  Marek Zidlicky wasn’t horrible but his hesitant play made him a liability on the power play.  That in itself is pretty bad, when your offensive skills are supposed to be the strongest part of your game.  Mike Lundin seems to be the Wild’s preferred popcorn maker as a regular healthy scratch for most of the season.  Between the pipes I expect the Wild to start Niklas Backstrom over Josh Harding.  Backstrom, despite his struggles in the shootout seems to be the ace Wild Head Coach Mike Yeo looks to carry the load. 

Simply put this is a game the Wild should win and in fact needs to win.  To come home with anything less than 2 points against Columbus has to been seen as a loss.  Columbus is banged up and demoralized.  The Wild are getting healthier and need to keep pace both with the teams in front of them and behind them.  I have little doubt Todd Richards’ message to his team is to relish the role of the spoiler, and this game will come down to who wants it more.  The Wild will show us just how bad they want it, or not. 

Injury Report:

Minnesota:     Jarod Palmer (concussion), Guillaume Latendresse (concussion), Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion, groin),  Mikko Koivu (left shoulder, questionable), Clayton Stoner (lower body, doubtful)   

Columbus:    Radek Martinek (concussion), Kristian Huselius (groin), James Wisniewski (broken left ankle), Mark Letestu (right hand surgery), Jeff Carter (separated right shoulder), R.J. Umberger (concussion-like symptoms), Nikita Nikitin (knee) 

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