It was another great night of preseason NHL hockey at the X on Wednesday night. The Wild pounded on the visiting St Louis Blues. I personally didn’t think it was too fair of a match-up because the Wild was playing with ¾ of their starters and the Blues only about ½ of their regular guys, but hey a win is a win and it was nice to see some good puck movement by the guys up frontfront.
The Wild scored all but one of its goals in the second period. Pavol Demitra and Mark Parrish each had two and linemates Brian Rolston, Eric Belanger and Pierre-Marc Bouchard each added one of their own to bring the total to LUCKY 7! It was nice to see that Kim Johnsson had two assists as he is my darkhorse for the year.
The Wild power play looked amazing and it is clear that Lemaire has all of his ducks in a row (so to speak) for the upcoming Minnesota Wild season.
Next game is Friday night in St Louis, I am betting the Blues will be looking for a little revenge on their home ice.
Players in the game note: As a huge Gopher hockey supporter, I have to say I was excited when I heard the Blues were coming to town because I wanted to see past University of Minnesota Gopher Erik Johnson on the ice in his home state. Johnson was the number on draft pick for the Blues and should be a prodcutive player, well except for Wednesday night. He led the Blues in ice time with 21 minutes, 24 seconds and played point on the power play, but it wasn't enough to hurdle the Blues over the goose egg. It's great to see local hockey players in the NHL!
Minnesota is the state of hockey, no doubt!