Tonight should be an interesting night for more than one reason:
#1- It’s the firest Wild home game in quite some time.
#2- They are wearing their “Miller High Life” Jersey’s tonight.
#3 – Chuck Kobasew should make his Wild debut.
#4- It’s Koivu’s first game with the “C”.
That’s the good stuff. The bad stuff is that Colorado comes into the game with the 3rd largest margin of victory in the league and they are healthy. The Avs have been outstanding on both sides of the ice this year scoring 28 goals while only giving up 18.
I think the Wild have a first line [...]

Well through the first four games the Wild have only two points, scored only 10 goals and given up 15. The good news is that nearly half of the goals given up were by Josh Harding.  Not that all of them were his fault alone but he was clearly not on his “A” game (or even”D” game for that matter).  It’s going to be a long season if the Wild continue to lose 4-2 (on average) every night.
Thus far we’ve seen flashes of  what the new more aggressive play style can do with the comeback victory over the Ducks where [...]

The Wild start a long West Coast  trip tonight against the Kings. Both teams come into the game with 2 points. So far the Kings seem to be the better offensive team (as expected) and the Wild the better defensive team.
After two brutal periods against the Ducks, Richards changed up the lines paring Belanger, Havlat and Sykora in one line and Koivu,Brunette and Clutterbuck in the other. Which leaves Nolan on the 3rd line with Sheppard and Miettinen. The result: Bottled lightning. 3 goals in the third, one in OT for the win.
Looking at the stats for the first two [...]

With the 2009-2010 season approaching quickly The State of Hockey is awaking from it’s summer of  neutral zone trap slumber clamoring for Wild hockey. Many of the Wild fans have a bitter taste left in their mouths from the parting with the team’s first coach, Jacques Lemaire. Over the last three seasons the Wild fans have been lulled to sleep by perhaps the most boring unimaginative team in the league.
Perhaps even more maligned than Lemaire was VP Doug Risebrough.  Risebrough is the NHL’s version of Kevin McHale with a level of ineptitude approached by nobody else.  Trades not turning out, [...]