The Two-Line Pass

Good night

“Troubled,” they said. “Disappointing,” too. And “unhappy.” “Disgruntled,” as well. “Unwilling” got tossed around. And those are some of the tamer adjectives that were applied to Guillaume Latendresse during and then immediately after his time in Montreal.

So when Bob Gainey traded him to Minnesota for another troubled, disappointing, unhappy, disgruntled, unwilling former highly-regarded pick in Benoit Pouliot (presumably because his name sounds French-Canadian and that should keep the vultures from picking at the slowly-dying body that is Gainey’s remaining time with the Canadiens), there was.. well I guess to say there was rejoicing is overstating things. But there was a general agreement that this was a trade that had to be made even if the return was uninspiring.

And while Pouliot has yet to play for his new club, which was so badly embarrassed by Toronto(?!) last night that Kyle Chipchura got traded immediately thereafter as though that would do anything for the Habs, tonight was just Latendresse’s third game with the Wild, so I imagine there was a bit of curiosity in both cities as to how the kid, who has never come close to living up to the high standards placed upon him by the Montreal press, would do.

How’s “best player on the ice” sound?

Read the rest of this entry »

I was reading the Calgary Sun this afternoon when I stumbled upon this story about the contents of the basement of Brent Burns’ house. While the subject struck me as odd, the basement’s inhabitants are even odder.

He’s got birds, huskies, cats and a big saltwater fish tank that includes a shark and poisonous lionfish — the only venomous creature in his house. The snakes are locked away safely in an escape-proof basement at the 9,100-sq.-ft. home in which the 23-year-old has lived for more than a year.

Creepy as hell. If you want to see someone else who had an escape-proof basement, pick up a copy of Silence of the Lamb or read a book about a certain Chicago-based clown.

Up to 40 snakes were in his basement last spring, but he’s also breeding his pets.

After a little bit of digging, I found out that it gets even weirder.

“I love being in there,” Burns said. “I could be in there all day. [Susan] yells at me. On days off, I’m down there like eight, 10 hours just feeding them, cleaning their cages.

I guarantee that Brent Burns becomes the snake-owning male equivalent of a crazy cat lady before he turns 30, and one day 30 or 40 years down the line we’ll hear about how he was eaten whole by a boa constrictor while trying to force it to have sex with a Burmese python.

The Lead

It should be noted that I’m a fan of defense-first hockey. I don’t think the trap was detrimental to the health of the sport, I don’t find the style pioneered by New Jersey to be upsetting in any way, and I would certainly prefer to see a 1-0 game than a 5-4 game any night of the week.

That said, there isn’t a team as eye-bleedingly boring, as rage-inducing or as generally unpleasant to watch as the Minnesota Wild have been for pretty much the entire month of December.

Their 2-1 loss to Calgary tonight wasn’t so much a defensive struggle as it was a study in attacking ineptitude by Minnesota and a spectacular goaltending performance from Wild backup Josh Harding. While Calgary only put 29 shots on net (not the most jaw-dropping of shot totals, admittedly), Harding made several point-blank saves including one flurry on a late Calgary power play when it was still 1-1 where he stopped four or five shots right on the doorstep while the Minnesota defense simply stood around, seemingly asking, “Oh should we have picked that guy up? And him too?” while Harding sprawled from one side of the crease to the other.

The problem, though, started as a symptomless affliction in October after Minnesota opened at 7-2-1 in their first 10 despite winning by two or more just twice and averaging just 2.5 goals in those games. In their next 10, a slight sniffled appeared; they were 5-5-0 with a pair of shootout wins and scored three goals or more just four times.

And now whatever problem the Wild have is settling into the lungs. In Games 21-30, the Wild went 3-6-1 and, while they scored four, six, five and four in the first four games of that stretch, they netted a total of seven in the following six. In Games 31-35 (No. 35 being tonight’s loss), the Wild are 2-3-0 and just playing dreadfully unwatchable hockey. No attacking flair whatsoever, even by Minnesotan standards, and it wasn’t as though Calgary played especially good shutdown hockey. The Wild simply have no one that can put the puck in the net. In fact, aside from the Islanders, no one in the NHL has a worse record than Minnesota’s since Dec. 1.

They’re playing so badly that even though they’re a team for which I have no great dislike, I firmly believe they deserve to be right where they are: dead last in the Northwest. I no longer even feel bad that they’re going to trade Gaborik for peanuts. Their defensive style is just that offensive.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Just so you guys are clear on this from the outset, you should take “lower body” to mean “groin” for the rest of this post.)

Marian Gaborik is injured again and will miss tonight’s game. (Of course, because I was considering watching the Wild game tonight and they’d prefer that I had no reason to do so.) This time, it’s an unspecified “LOWER BODY” injury.

I don’t know when Gaborik hurt his “lower body” because he was certainly playing soccer hackysack/volleyball for about 45 minutes yesterday with Andrew Brunette, Mikko Koivu, Antti Miettinen and Eric Belanger. He did have his right upper thigh/groin area wrapped with ice after the game in Atlanta when he was interviewed by me, but that’s not abnormal with Gaborik, who gets iced down after every game due to his history of groin, hip and other leg ailments.

Minnesota’s already off and running this year. Gaborik’s the fourth player to get an injury of some variety since the start of the season. Doesn’t help that the team sucks even with him. Without him, their No. 1 scoring threat, with both Gabby and PM Bouchard out, is Eric Belanger. Mhmm. Belanger.

The immediate speculation, of course, was that Gaborik had been traded. But Wild fans won’t have to worry about that for long. With Gaborik’s LOWER BODY constantly injured, no one’s going to want him, and, if they actually do, they wouldn’t be willing to trade anything like fair value for him, and thus Minnesota would be disinclined to accept any such proposals.

So Gabby stays in Minnesota for another little while here until they can prove that LOWER BODY is 100 percent trade-ready, healthwise. Enjoy the press box popcorn.

Here’s a live blog of the Minnesota-St. Louis prospects game at the NHL’s Traverse City rookie tournament.

Want rosters? Okay. Minnesota’s are here, St. Louis’ are here.

All updates below the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gaborik's new linemate

Has it really come to this?

Doug Risebrough and assistant GM Tom Lynn had to go to Slovakia and tell Marian Gaborik, the team’s only real offensive star, that they’re really, really not as bad as they seem. Really, they’re trying hard and everything!

The Wild gave Gaborik specifics on everything it tried to do, especially this summer and at the deadline. Gaborik knows the Wild went after Marian Hossa because he was involved in the recruitment. The Wild wanted guys like Kristian Huselius and Brendan Morrison, but they chose to go elsewhere. After that it was an under-supplied market.

Risebrough told Gaborik that the Wild went hard after a center at the deadline, especially Olli Jokinen, and I’ve since found out, Mats Sundin. The Wild thought it was going to land Peter Forsberg, and when he chose Colorado, it thought it had Jokinen. But at the last second, Florida decided not to trade him, and like at the Draft in June, the Wild wasn’t going to give up Mikko Koivu or James Sheppard to get him.

All this, of course, ignores the fact that many teams TRIED to get these players, and all but one per player failed. Gaborik, for all his prodigious talents, is still almost a Robinson Crusoe figure, stranded on an island of Minnesota’s offensive malaise.

What’s that you say, Mr. Risebrough? There are lots of fancy charts and graphs (possibly in pie format) that demonstrate Gaborik getting a ton of help so he doesn’t have to blow out his groin again carrying the entire team’s offensive load? Interesting.

But at last week’s dinner, Risebrough and Lynn showed Gaborik that, since the lockout, he’s fourth in the NHL in goals per game (behind Alex Ovechin, Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley), first in even-strength goals per minute played and tied for second in goals per 60 minutes played (behind Ovechkin).

Minnesota Wild 2008 offseason forward transactions:

Out: Brian Rolston (31 goals), Mark Parrish (16), Pavol Demitra (15).

Those are the three non-Gaborik highest-scoring forwards on the Wild last season, and yes, the team’s goal totals went 42, 31, 16, 15, 13 (that last one was the retained Eric Belanger. Eric Belanger is their second-highest returning forward scorer. Eric. Belanger).

In: Andrew Brunette (19), Owen Nolan (16), Antii Miettinen (15).

Replacing 62 goals from forwards with 50 is somehow acceptable in Risebroughland, where up is down and Eric Belanger is a viable second-line option.

I thought this was interesting too:

The Wild apparently gave Gaborik an inside-look at its future plans, and the fact owner Craig Leipold is more than willing to bring in players in future years of Gaborik’s potential contract. And a big part of the meeting was an attempt to sell Gaborik that he has a chance to grow with Koivu, Sheppard, Brent Burns, P-M Bouchard, Nick Schultz, Colton Gillies, etc.

Okay, but if the perception is that Minnesota is not an organization that is conducive to scoring (and Gaborik being the only player in team history to actually break a point-a-game pace bears that out), then why the hell would any legitimate high-scoring free agent, Gaborik included, want to play in Minnesota?

Yes, Gaborik, who will almost certainly play out the final year of his contract, can score in Minnesota with no help, and that’s great, but he can score even more elsewhere with it. He doesn’t play in a bubble in St. Paul, but he’s about as close as anyone in the league.

I don't know what's going on in this picture

From traded with Oleg Kvasha for Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to released by the Wild, it ain’t easy being Mark Parrish.

It’s really too bad. Had it not been for injuries and Jacques Lemaire’s seeming distaste for his game, he would have been worth the $2.6 million he was getting paid to score the 35-45 points he provides a year.

As I reported June 11, it was hard to see where Parrish fit in on this team. In that story, I mentioned that sources were telling me Doug Risebrough was offering him in a trade everywhere. I also mentioned buying out Parrish as a possibility. But I suggested the Wild would be smarter to put him on waivers in camp and then call him up on re-entry waivers so they save half the cap.

…

If Parrish is claimed, that team will incur his salary and cap hit. If he clears and the Wild indeed buys him out like I know it plans, it’ll have to pay 2/3 of his contract or $5,566,667.

Parrish scored 35 goals over two injury-shortened seasons in Minnesota, and at only 31, he might be worth the $1.3 million for the next three seasons. Someone will pick him up, I think, and I’d assume Minnesota is counting on it. Otherwise they’re on the hook for close to $1 million a year for the next six in his buyout.