Saturday, February 28, 2009

wild postgame: weak

i've always had a lot of respect for the minnesota wild, and i'll be the first to admit that all the clutter-bashing that's been goin' on for the better part of a week is largely tongue in cheek (shhhhh... i kinda like the guy).

well here's what happened last night: at the first sign of physical play, cal went fetal behind the flames' net. a minute or two later, after some pushing and shoving infront of kiprusoff, c'buck crumpled to the ice "like he's been shot" (said martine gaillard, on sportsnet connected) and received a diving penalty for his efforts....

so he can dish it out but he can't take it ? come ON, i thought he was tougher than that....

i was pretty much bang on in this statement, "i would earmark prust for [a fight] if it weren't for his questionable jaw, and if boogard drew in he'd get murdered anyways.... i nominate vandermeer to be the guy to stand up and tell those dudes in christmas colours that we don't like it when their calder nom ruins our blueliners." boogaard clearly targetted prust with his best chris pronger impression in the dying minutes, nailing him with an elbow to the face (jaw ?). this was entirely behind the play when the game was clearly out of reach for boogaard's wild. while i'm not sure i agree he left his feet, he's probably got about 8 inches on prusty to begin with: an elbow is an elbow. watch for a 3-or4-game suspension later today.

and vandermeer was the 3rd guy in, sticking up for our brandon, who was clearly in some pain (did prusty have an underbite BEFORE the broken jaw ???)...

other than that, the flames played a decent hockey game: one of the best outings i've seen since the slumping started. it was really a team game, with keenan comfortably rolling all four lines. DVDG held his own, much to the surprise of rob kerr (who obviously didn't do his homework). the kid is a career shut-down type fourth line grinder and proved that his time in the flames' system was not in vain. keenan rewarded his hard play with over nine minutes of icetime, and a couple big-ol' smiles when discussing him in the post-game presser. if he continues like this (and lundmark continues fitting right in), langkow will be able to heal properly, and the troops are proving they can step up... awesome.

***UPDATE: prust must be really hurt, cause the flames have recalled warren peters... i guess now we get to see just how deep this team is....

see above for your daily clutterbuck roshambo: he does a mean turtle impression.

8 comments:

awildermode said...

I too, was impressed with VanderRookie last night. He had a lot of great chances.

walkinvisible said...

haha VanDerRookie is a good call.

Ms. Conduct said...

*sigh* I'm full of woe today.

But you'll root for us against the grease, right?

walkinvisible said...

i will root for anyone against the oil, except the canucks (of course). i will also root for macintyre/stortini to beat the living crap out of your clutterbuck.

Ms. Conduct said...

*sniff* Fake with the left and hit with the right, eh? :)

ngthagg said...

Five games for Boogard is the final call.

I love the way our call-ups are performing right now. I suspect it has to do with coming up and playing for a winning team, but they seem to be fitting into the system nicely.

And I heartily approve of Sutter rotating a lot of players through. It gives him and Keenan a chance to see what they've got, which may be very important come playoff time.

Anonymous said...

Sources say, Prust may be done for the season.

Thanks alot Boogaard.

walkinvisible said...

Sources say, Prust may be done for the season.

this doesn't surprise me, and kindof points to DVDG staying on with the team when langks comes back. lundmark gets demoted/moved around boyd styles. kinda okay by me.