Post-Game: Minnesota Wild vs Colorado Avalanche

	Wild Regular Season Game #30
1	Final Score	0

Post-Game Thoughts
xxx

Scoring Summary
1st Period
5:57, Antti Miettinen, 8th (Andrew Brunette, Kim Johnsson)

2nd Period
None

3rd Period
None

	Game Stats
20	Shots on Goal	20
22	Faceoffs Won	24
0 of 3	Power Plays	0 of 6

Game Highlights


To hear the PONDcast POSTgame from tonight's game from rockstar Kevin Falness, click the Play Button below

Gameday: Minnesota Wild vs Colorado Avalanche

Wild Regular Season Game #30
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009, 8:00 PM CDT
Pepsi Center-Denver, Colorado

........................................................	........................................................
Season Series: 3-0-0	Season Series: 0-1-2
........................................................	........................................................
Overall Record: 13-13-3	Overall Record: 17-9-6
29 Points (14th in the West)	40 Points (2nd in the West)
Home Record: 9-3-1	Home Record: 7-2-2
Away Record: 4-10-2	Away Record: 10-7-4
Last 10 Games Played: 6-2-2	Last 10 Games Played: 4-3-3
Power Play: 24 of 122, 19.7% (17th)	Power Play: 24 of 121, 19.8% (14th)
Penalty Kill: 90 of 109, 82.6% (11th)	Penalty Kill: 110 of 137, 80.3% (15th)
Goals Per Game: 2.59 (21st)	Goals Per Game: 3.00 (6th)
Goals Against / Game: 2.93 (21st)	Goals Against / Game: 2.81 (17th)
........................................................	........................................................
Starting Forwards	Starting Forwards
	W. Wolski - P. Stastny - C. Stewart
	T.J. Galiardi - M. Duchene - M. Hejduk
	C. McLeod - R. O'Reilly - D. Tucker
	D. Koci - M. Hendricks - M. Svatos
Starting Defensemen	Starting Defensemen
	K. Quincy - S. Hannan
	J.M. Liles - B. Clark
	R. Wilson - A. Foote
Starting Goaltender	Starting Goaltender
	Petr Budaj
........................................................	........................................................
Wild Injury Report	Avalanche Injury Report
C, Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion)	RW, David Jones (torn left ACL)
C, Andrew Ebbett (concussion)	RW, Brandon Yip (undisclosed)
RW, Petr Sykora (concussion)	D, Kyle Cumiskey (foot)
D, Brent Burns (concussion)	D, Ruslan Salei (back)
	G, Craig Anderson (neck)
........................................................	........................................................
Wild Scratches	Avalanche Scratches
LW, Derek Boogaard	C, Justin Mercier
D, Jaime Sifers	D, Brian Fahey
........................................................	........................................................

Story Line: With some type of flu-like bug zeroing in on every immune system in the Minnesota Wild locker room, the team is looking for a healthy body as reinforcement. Additionally, Andrew Ebbett suffered a concussion from a hit to the head by Ed Jovanovski. Jovanovski has been suspended two games by the NHL. On Wednesday morning, the Wild called up center Nathan Smith for the third time this season. Smith has joined the team in Denver in advance of its matchup with the Colorado Avalanche tonight.

Without ill players Cal Clutterbuck and Boogaard, the Wild was shut out by the Phoenix Coyotes on Monday night, 2-0. It was the first loss of the team’s current five-game road trip, and the first time it has been blanked all season. Niklas Backstrom played a solid game but took the loss after allowing two goals on 31 shots.

Colorado is coming off a 4-0 shutout win in St. Louis on Monday. Peter Budaj earned his first doughnut of the season by stopping all 35 shots faced. Chris Stewart scored twice, while Paul Stastny and Matt Duchene also scored. Wojtek Wolski added three helpers in the win that closed out a five-game road trip at 3-1-1.

Quick Hits:
1. With Ebbett out because of a concussion sustained from a shot to the face by Phoenix's Ed Jovanovski, the Wild recalled Nathan Smith from Houston. Smith will be centering the fourth line tonight in Ebbett's place.

2. The Wild is expected to get Clutterbuck back tonight after he missed the last two games with an illness. Clutterbuck’s energy was especially missed on Monday, as there seemed to be a lack of big hits laid on Coyote players.

3. Minnesota has given up the game’s first goal in nine of its last 10 contests, including seven straight, but is 6-2-2 in that stretch.

Stats, Story Line and Quick Hits gathered from various sources. Visit NHL.com and wild.com for further information.

Post-Game: Minnesota Wild vs Phoenix Coyotes

	Wild Regular Season Game #29
0	Final Score	2

Post-Game Thoughts
xxx

Scoring Summary
1st Period
None

2nd Period
10:30, Scottie Upshall, 8th (Peter Mueller, Adrian Aucoin)
11:14, Taylor Pyatt, 4th (Shane Doan, Keith Yandle)

3rd Period
None

	Game Stats
28	Shots on Goal	31
30	Faceoffs Won	34
0 of 6	Power Plays	0 of 5

Game Highlights


To hear the PONDcast POSTgame from tonight's game from rockstar Kevin Falness, click the Play Button below

Gameday: Minnesota Wild vs Phoenix Coyotes

Wild Regular Season Game #29
Monday, December 7th, 2009, 8:00 PM CDT
Jobing.com Arena-Glendale, Arizona

........................................................	........................................................
Season Series: 0-1-0	Season Series: 1-0-0
........................................................	........................................................
Overall Record: 13-12-3	Overall Record: 17-11-1
29 Points (13th in the West)	35 Points (6th in the West)
Home Record: 9-3-1	Home Record: 10-5-0
Away Record: 4-9-2	Away Record: 7-6-1
Last 10 Games Played: 6-2-2	Last 10 Games Played: 6-3-1
Power Play: 24 of 116, 20.7% (12th)	Power Play: 20 of 107, 18.7% (22nd)
Penalty Kill: 85 of 104, 81.7% (11th)	Penalty Kill: 102 0f 123, 82.9% (9th)
Goals Per Game: 2.68 (21st)	Goals Per Game: 2.45 (26th)
Goals Against / Game: 2.96 (21st)	Goals Against / Game: 2.34 (5th)
........................................................	........................................................
Starting Forwards	Starting Forwards
Brunette - Koivu - Miettinen	S. Upshall - M. Lombardi - P. Mueller
Nolan - Belanger - Sheppard	S. Doan - R. Lang - T. Pyatt
Latendresse - Brodziak - Kobasew	P. Prucha - M. Hanzal - R. Vrbata
Scott - Ebbett - Havlat	L. Korpikoski - V. Fiddler - D. Winnik
Starting Defensemen	Starting Defensemen
Kim Johnsson - Jaime Sifers	Ed Jovanovski - Zbynek Michalek
Marek Zidlicky - Greg Zanon	Adrian Aucoin - Keith Yandle
Nick Schultz - Shane Hnidy	James Vandermeer - Sami Lepisto
Starting Goaltender	Starting Goaltender
Niklas Backstrom	Ilya Bryzgalov
........................................................	........................................................
Wild Injury Report	Coyotes Injury Report
C, Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion)	D, Kurt Sauer (concussion)
RW, Petr Sykora (concussion)
D, Brent Burns (concussion)
........................................................	........................................................
Wild Scratches	Coyotes Scratches
LW, Derek Boogaard	LW, Paul Bissonnette
RW, Cal Clutterbuck	LW, Mikkel Boedker
	D, David Schlemko
........................................................	........................................................

Story Line: The Minnesota Wild kicked off their five-game road trip in fashion on Saturday night with a 5-3 win over the Nashville Predators at Sommet Center. Andrew Ebbett, James Sheppard, Andrew Brunette, Antti Miettinen and Eric Belanger tallied goals, and 10 different players picked up points, including Martin Havlat who pocketed two assists. Josh Harding earned his second straight win in a 26-save effort.

The Phoenix Coyotes hosted the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night and scored the first three goals before holding on for a 3-2 win. Ed Jovanovski, Taylor Pyatt and Petr Prucha picked up goals and Ilya Bryzgalov stayed hot in stopping 26 shots.

Quick Hits:
1. A Wild win tonight would tie the second-longest win streak in team history at six games. The longest in club history was nine games set in March of 2007. Minnesota is tied with Washington for the longest active winning streak.

2. The Wild have given up the first goal in 8 of the last 9 games. In those games, they have a record of 6-1-2.

3. Minnesota is looking for its first three-game road-winning streak since winning the first three games of the 2008-2009 season.

Post-Game: Minnesota Wild vs Nashville Predators

	Wild Regular Season Game #28
5	Final Score	3

Post-Game Thoughts
Tonight the Wild played one of the most dominating games I've seen from them yet this season. Each player fore-checked and pressured Nashville throughout the entire game whether it was even strength or if Nashville was on a power play.

The Wild allowed their opponent to score the first goal of the game tonight for the eighth time in the last nine games, but they didn't let it affect them even after taking four minor penalties in the first period.

After Nashville took a 1-0 lead, the Wild took control of the game. Andrew Ebbett and James Sheppard scored 1:32 apart at the end of the first period and it was all Minnesota from that point on.

In the second period, the Wild added an even-strength goal from Brunette and a power play tally from Antti Miettinen and seemingly controlled the entire second period by playing in Nashville's zone for the majority of the time and out-shooting Nashville 18-9.

Minnesota started the third period on the power play and soon after added another goal. When the Wild went up by four goals, Nashville started to play more aggressive and eventually added two more goals, but it was too little, too late. For almost the entire night, Minnesota dictated play by dominating every aspect of the game.

Tonight's win gives Minnesota a 6-0-1 record in its past seven games and marks a great start to important five-game road trip against some of the Western Conference's top teams.

With the Wild playing this well, look for a very entertaining game Monday night versus a surging Phoenix Coyotes team.

Scoring Summary
1st Period
9:27, Martin Erat, 6th (PP) (Ryan Suter)
18:16, Andrew Ebbett, 4th (Martin Havlat, Derek Boogaard)
19:48, James Sheppard, 1st (Nick Schultz, Owen Nolan)

2nd Period
11:21, Andrew Brunette, 10th (PP) (Martin Havlat)
17:37, Antti Miettinen, 7th (Andrew Brunette, Mikko Koivu)

3rd Period
3:27, Eric Belanger, 6th (PP) (unassisted)
9:05, Jason Arnott, 10th (unassisted)
19:48, Marcel Goc, 4th (Wade Belak)

	Game Stats
39	Shots on Goal	29
33	Faceoffs Won	28
2 of 4	Power Plays	1 of 5

Game Highlights


To hear the PONDcast POSTgame from tonight's game from rockstar Kevin Falness, click the Play Button below