On national television the Minnesota Wild proved itself to be for real against the defending champs. The Wild beat the Anaheim Ducks in front of another Xcel Energy Center sold out crowd last night, with a convincing score of 5-1. All of my post All-Star break fears were dissolved in the second period.

The Wild shut down the Ducks in the first period, and then went on in the second period to suck the life out of them. After a 0-0 tie after one, the Wild came out of the first intermission and within three minutes and eighteen seconds of the second period, the Wild were up 3-0. The flurry of scoring was even good enough to knock Wild-nemesis goaltender J.S. Giguere out of the game.

Brian Rolston, Marian Gaborik, Mikko Koivu, Pierre-Marc Bouchard all dealt crushing goals to the Ducks in the second period, and James Sheppard sealed the deal with the Wild’s fifth goal near the conclusion of the contest. The Minnesota Wild stays on top of Northwest division. There should be some really interesting hockey coming up over the next few weeks. Let us see if the Wild can assert Western Conference dominance along with Dallas and Detroit.