Game #67: Minnesota Wild at Buffalo Sabres, Friday March 12, 2010 at 6:30pm (CST), HSBC Arena [GAME PREVIEW]

I can’t tell you how many times during last night’s game in Detroit I sarcastically said to myself, “that optional practice on Wednesday sure paid off.”  While the game was better than the one against Florida, it wasn’t the kind of game that would justify an optional practice.  Then when you consider last night’s opponent, it causes you to further question everyone and everything regarding the Wild that you would even allow an optional practice.  Yes, the Red Wings are fighting to get into the playoffs, but when you know that they’re desperate and the record against the Red Wings (especially at Joe Louis Arena), you don’t take a day off.  You just have to hope that it’s not decided that this morning’s skate isn’t deemed optional as well.

It also doesn’t help that the injury bug seems to have struck again.  Of course the most obvious is that to goaltender Niklas Backstrom.  It seems he injured himself in practice prior to last night’s game.  I have a feeling however, that it wouldn’t have mattered which goaltender was in net.  The Red Wings were ready to go on the attack from the opening faceoff, and the Wild just couldn’t make up for it.  Of course throwing in Josh Harding wasn’t going to help much.  Of course, a hip injury to a returned Brent Burns doesn’t help much either.  However, I must say I’d rather it be a hip injury than see him suffer from another concussion.  When you thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.  Last night, the Wild lost their top goal scorer, Guillaume Latendresse with a high stick to the back of his neck.  While it appears that there was no blood, diagnostic tests will definitely be run to make sure he’s okay.

In a normal world with a normal team, the announcement that the Buffalo Sabres are going to sit Ryan Miller and start Patrick Lalime in net would be good news.  However, the Wild rarely play the role of a normal team.  Whatever it is, but it always seems that Minnesota manages to make a backup goaltender look like a Hall of Fame goaltender.  Of course, the fact that the Sabres have the sixth best goals against, will certainly help Lalime in his quest to stop the Wild.  In fact, if there was a game that the Wild could get even fewer shots on net, it would be this one.  At the very least, if that does happen it won’t happen in front of home fans.  One of my friends had tickets to the Florida game.  Not only did she have tickets, her seats were ten rows from the ice on the end where the Wild shot twice.  Needless to say, she didn’t see much.

At this point, it is time for Minnesota to forget about the playoffs.  What they need to do, is take a page from the Edmonton Oilers.  Often when a team finds themselves well out of the playoff picture (which has been the case in Edmonton most of the season), they play more relaxed and often play good games.  When playoffs are not realistic, playing the role of spoiler can be a bit of evil fun.  Looking at the rest of the schedule this month, you just have to notice that the Wild could make things difficult for their fellow Western Conference opponents.  Perhaps, Minnesota can fully embrace the role of spoiler when they return to Detroit on March 26th.  If we can’t make the playoffs, it would certainly be nice to dash the hopes of fans in Motor City.