Minnesota Wild vs Edmonton Oilers: Game Recap

About midway through the second period, I felt as though I had been watching the game for six hours. It was boring, drab, uneventful. The referees missed any number of calls against both sides, making themselves look as silly as the game's participants. It truly felt as though no one wanted to be there, and it was a true inconvenience that they had to play this game tonight. Dang those fans and their $200 seats. If it weren't for them, these guys could have all taken the night off, and everyone may have been more entertained had they done so.

In the shootout, Backstrom showed signs of greatness, and supreme weakness. He made a couple nice saves, and gave up one very weak goal five hole inwhich the puck never left the ice. The Oilers also scored a couple of beautiful shootout goals, beating Backs clean.

The Oilers beat the Wild tonight. Don't get me wrong. I am not claiming the Wild were or are the better team, but they certainly played down to their opponent tonight. For four periods of play, no one deserved to win this game. However, the Oilers decided to actually play in the shootout and took home the extra point the Wild desperately needed.

Getting back to the Boogaard hit, Russo tweeted that Boogey said:

Ryan Jones left the game and is reported to have a right knee sprain.

I tried to defend Boogaard's place on this team in the comment section of a post over at The Copper & Blue. Then Boogey goes out and pulls this bonehead move. It looked pretty blatant from my perspective, and I fully expect Colin Campbell to suspend Boogaard. If it were me, he'd get at least five games.Stupid play, and it plays right into the perception of Boogaard. He needs to be above this, and tonight he played right into their hands.

1. Jeff Deslauriers - (28 saves)

2. Niklas Backstrom - (22 Saves)

3. No one - seriously. No one. They don't deserve it. I will not award it.

Five Questions to Answer:

1. Patrick O'Sullivan has a worse +/- than he has points (-32, 30 points). Will this get worse after tonight? He was on the ice for the Wild's only goal, so yeah. It got worse.

3. Have the Oilers given up on the season, or will the new look squad in Edmonton be looking to build on something for next season? They won, which is more than the Wild can say, but this was definitely not a performance to build on.

4. Mikko Koivu and Andrew Brunette both have point streaks going (three games and four games respectively). Can they extend these tonight? Both streaks ended tonight.

5. The Wild have looked pretty bad at Edmonton lately. Can they rebound and get another regulation win to inch closer to the playoff hunt? HA! Talk about nailing it right on the head. They definitely looked terrible tonight.

-Buddha