Wild Can't Survive Red Wings Onslaught, Fall In Overtime

The Minnesota Wild got outshot by a ridiculous margin on Saturday night at the XCel Energy Center, but Josh Harding nearly carried the team to a victory in his first appearance in 568 days in spite of all that.

Despite getting outshot by a 41-14 margin, the Wild managed to find themselves in overtime against the Detroit Red Wings, but Johan Franzen's power play goal at the 4:11 mark of overtime gave Detroit a 3-2 victory over Minnesota.

Minnesota got the first two goals of this one, as Greg Zanon lit the lamp for the first time this year at the 19:48 mark of the first period. It was Zanon's first goal in 136 games, which had been the second-longest goal drought in the NHL behind Mattias Ohlund of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Cal Clutterbuck tacked on a second goal just 16 seconds into the second period, and the Wild appeared to be on their way. The score remained 2-0 until there were just 47.7 seconds left in the second period, when Ian White beat Harding to cut the Wild's lead in half.

Less than four minutes into the third period, Jiri Hudler scored the tying goal for the Red Wings, and the score remained that way until we reached the overtime period. Matt Cullen was called for a questionable tripping penalty halfway through the extra session, and that put the Red Wings on the power play. Franzen then scored the deciding goal on a play where it appeared the puck went into the net off of his skate, but was held up on replay.

The loss was the first one at home this season for the Wild, who are now 2-0-1 at the XCel Energy Center. They have six points thus far, and are in second place in the Northwest Division. The Red Wings move to a perfect 4-0-0 with the victory.

The three stars for the game were as follows:

* - Harding: 38 saves, .927 save percentage
** - Hudler: 1 goal
*** - Clutterbuck - 1 goal

Wild Take Down Oilers In Shootout, 2-1

Edmonton Oilers' goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin was nearly impenetrable on Thursday night at the XCel Energy Center, but at the end of the game, the Minnesota Wild found just enough of a crack to get themselves a victory in front of the home crowd.

Despite outshooting the Oilers by a margin of 14-1 in the third period of play, Thursday night's game had to go to a shootout, but the Minnesota Wild wound up winning that phase of the game and getting the victory by a score of 2-1.

The Oilers opened up the scoring in this one, as Ryan Smyth got his first goal of the 2011-12 season at the 11:18 mark of the first period, beating Nicklas Backstrom and giving the Oilers a 1-0 lead. It took a while for the Wild to answer back, but they did just that at the 8:18 mark of the second period when Matt Cullen lit the lamp for his third goal of the year to tie the score.

That's how things stayed into the shootout, and both teams opened the penalty shot phase with a goal, as Cullen beat Khabibulin, but Edmonton's Jordan Eberle answered by beating Backstrom to knot things at one. Khabibulin then denied the returning Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Mikko Koivu, while Backstrom stoned Anton Lander and watched Taylor Hall's shot sail past the net, extending the shootout to a fourth round. In that round, Devin Setoguchi managed to sneak one past Khabibulin, and Backstrom got a stop on Shawn Horcoff to ice the game for Minnesota.

The three stars for the game were the following:

* - Setoguchi: 0 goals, 0 assists, winning goal in shootout
** - Khabibulin: 34 saves, .971 save percentage
*** - Backstrom: 21 saves, .955 save percentage

The win for the Wild evens their record for the season at 2-2. They will have Friday off before hosting the Detroit Red Wings at the XCel Energy Center on Saturday night.

Wild Give Up Two-Goal Third Period Lead, Fall To Senators In Shootout

It looked like the Minnesota Wild might be on their way to their first road victory of 2011 in Ottawa on Tuesday night, but the Ottawa Senators came back from a two-goal deficit in the third period and took down the Wild in a shootout to come away with a 4-3 victory.

Minnesota got on the board early in this one with two first-period goals. The first one came from Kyle Brodziak, who redirected a Clayton Stoner slapshot past Senators' goalie Craig Anderson at the 8:41 mark to give the Wild a 1-0 lead. Then, with less than a minute left in the opening period, Devin Setoguchi tallied his second goal of the year, a power play goal assisted by Mikko Koivu and Dany Heatley to give the Wild a 2-0 lead going into the intermission.

Ottawa struck back in the second period, as Nick Foligno put one past Niklas Backstrom at the 8:17 mark of the second period to get the Senators to within 2-1, but the Wild made it a two-goal margin again early in the third, with Nick Johnson's unassisted tally less than two minutes in gave the Wild a 3-1 lead. Unfortunately for the Wild, it was not long after that point that the Senators scored two goals in a span of 2:09, with Chris Neil beating Backstrom to draw Ottawa to within 3-2, and Colin Greening scoring on the power play to tie the game at 3-3.

Things remained that way through the rest of the third period and a five-minute overtime session, so the two teams went to a shootout. The Senators went first, with Milan Michalek beating Backstrom to give the Sens an early advantage. On the other end, Koivu was unable to score against Anderson, and Jason Spezza went 5-hole against Backstrom to give the Senators a 2-0 lead. Matt Cullen beat Anderson to make it 2-1 and keep the Wild alive, but Daniel Alfredsson ended it by beating Backstrom again, giving the Senators a 3-1 win in the shootout and a 4-3 win on the scoreboard.

Here are the three stars for the contest:

* - Backstrom - 41 saves, .932 save percentage
** - Neil - 1 goal, 1 assist
*** - Alfredsson - 0 goals, 0 assists, winning goal in shootout

The Wild will return home on Thursday to host the Edmonton Oilers, and will welcome back forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard, who missed both the Wild's road games because of a two-game suspension for an incident in the season opener against Columbus.

Heatley Leads Wild Into Ottawa To Take On Senators

Dany Heatley spent four seasons with the Ottawa Senators, scoring 180 goals for the team, but left the team on less-than-desirable terms. Tonight, he will lead his Minnesota Wild teammates into Canada's capital to take on his old team.

The Wild have split their first two games of the season, with Heatley and his new/old linemate from San Jose, Devin Setoguchi, tallying goals in the season opener as the Wild defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-2. The Wild lost on Monday afternoon on Long Island, falling to the Islanders by a score of 2-1. Ottawa has had a pretty rough start to the season, dropping their first two games. They dropped their season opener to the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 5-3, and then fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs by a score of 6-5. Tuesday night will be the home opener for Ottawa.

By all accounts, this trip to Ottawa is already going better than their last trip to the city. The Wild last went to Ottawa in 2009, when a fire to their equipment truck destroyed the majority of their gear. No such incidents have been reported thus far.

Here are your line combinations for the Wild for this evening:

Setoguchi-Koivu-Heatley


Bulmer-Cullen-Latendresse
Powe-Brodziak-Clutterbuck

Gillies-Johnson-Kassian

And the Wild's defensive combinations:

Zanon-Zidlicky
Schultz-Scandella


Stoner Spurgeon

Despite the rumors that Josh Harding would make his season debut this evening, apparently Niklas Backstrom will be between the pipes for the Wild again.

The puck drops for this one at 6:30 PM Central time, and you can watch the game on Fox Sports North or hear the game on the Wild Radio Network.

Wild Get Down Early, Can't Come Back In 2-1 Loss To Islanders

The Minnesota Wild outshot the New York Islanders 19-5 over the final two periods of play at the Nassau Coliseum on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, the first period did not go nearly as well, and as a result the Wild found themselves on the wrong end of a 2-1 final score in their first road game of the 2011-12 season.

The Islanders got on the board first in this one, capitalizing on a tripping penalty by Wild captain Mikko Koivu at the 9:05 mark of the first period. Islanders' defenseman Andrew MacDonald collected the rebound of a shot by Travis Hamonic, and ripped a shot past Niklas Backstrom that ricocheted off of the post before finding its way into the net, giving New York a 1-0 lead.

Less than three minutes later, the Islanders got onto the board again, as captain Mark Streit faked a shot from the blue line, pushed deeper into the zone, and flipped a perfect past to Frans Neilsen at the right post, who redirected it in for a goal to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead. P.A. Parenteau had the secondary assist on both goals for the Isles.

The Wild were kept off of the board until early in the third period, when Matt Cullen managed to sneak one past Montoya for his second goal of the year at the 1:13 mark. It was Cullen's second goal of the season, with the assists going to Guillaume Latendresse and Brent Bulmer. Unfortunately, the Wild would get no closer, with Montoya standing tall as Minnesota pressed for the tying goal at the end of the game.

Minnesota managed to fire off just two shots against Islanders' goaltender Al Montoya in the first period of play, despite having two power plays in the first five minutes of play. Overall, the Wild went 0-for-7 with the man advantage on the afternoon, including a 44-second two-man advantage in which they didn't even muster a shot.

The Wild will move on to play the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.

Wild At Islanders: Minnesota Travels East For Columbus Day Matinee

Fresh off of a win in their 2011-12 season opener, the Minnesota Wild will head to the Nassau Coliseum to take on an Eastern Conference foe, the New York Islanders in their first road game of this NHL season.

The Islanders has their season debut at home on Saturday, and were shut out by the Florida Panthers by a score of 2-0. The Wild hosted the Columbus Blue Jackets at the XCel Energy Center, and were victorious by a score of 4-2.

Minnesota will play this one without forwards Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Brad Staublitz, both of whom are serving suspensions. Bouchard's suspension, one that will sit him down for two games because of a high-sticking incident in the season opener, came down on Sunday. He will miss this game and tomorrow night's game against the Ottawa Senators.

Here are the likely line pairings for the Wild with Bouchard and Staublitz absent:

Setoguchi-Koivu-Heatley


Powe-Cullen-Latendresse
Bulmer-Brodziak-Clutterbuck

Gillies-Johnson-Kassian

And the likely defensive pairings:

Zanon-Zidlicky
Schultz-Scandella


Stoner Spurgeon

Niklas Backstrom will get the start between the pipes in this one for the Wild again.

The puck will drop pretty early for this one, with a start time of noon Central. You can watch the game on Fox Sports North or Fox Sports Wisconsin, or you can check out KFAN-FM 100.3, as well as any of the other Wild Radio Network affiliates, for the radio call.

Wild Week: Minnesota Has Four Games Lined Up For Season's First Full Week

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