wild/nhl

After watching Calgary play against the Sharks, the Wild better get it in gear pronto. If Setoguchi cant perform with Koivu and Heatley, the season is over. With Calgary, Anaheim, and Phoenix playing great puck, it may only be a matter of time before the Wild are out if they cant score some goals.

i didnt know koivu played on the wing...?

I'm not sure that he is quite the difference maker that this anticipation is building for. Would he have won the game against Columbus? As "tadeshe" mentioned above, the rest of the top half of this league is gearing up to kick _ _ _ every game, every night. To say that they should jump on the ice and believe that they are a good team might be taking things a little lightly. This is where they could use that "Owen Nolan" locker room speech where he tells the boys to be men and go out and outplay the other team every shift - win every period. A few of these guys really seem to play hard - but watch those other teams mentioned above - 20 guys are playing hard.

Koivu will not make the difference tonight, mark my words..even with one of the sedin twins potentially out, the Canucks will be hustling every shift and forechecking spurg, nikki schultz, and justine falk through the boardsc causing multiole turnovers and alot of time spent in our defensive zone..if the Mild win tonight, I will be on the Russo Rant tomorrow and own up, but MK does and will not make the difference..

I'm not jumping for joy to see Koivu returning. It seems the team didn't have any particular spark when he was playing, as they were still mired in their losing streak, and he wasn't exactly doing anything to help them break the streak. In fact, they didn't do that until he'd been gone a couple of weeks, and guys like Brodziak, Johnson and Heatley began stepping up and producing. Sure, it's good news that Henrik may not play tonight, but that pest Burrows will still be there. Let's hope Kassian will play tonight, as I have a feeling they may need him.

The GM has managed to overpay for several of our "stars". Not sure what Fletcher has in store for next year, but another year of borderline playoff hockey is not what Minnesota fans want to see. At some point people need to expect more out of this organization, including the owner, GM and coach. This fan loves hockey, but watching a mediocre team play for a decade is really getting old. I don't see much changing for next year, but maybe Fletcher has a few surprises up his sleeve. After all, it didn't take Toronto and the Rangers GM long to turn their teams around. I guess it could be worse and we could be in that hockey hotbed called Columbus.

Why break up the Heatley-Brodziak-Johnson line when they have created such a spark since Koivu has been out? Not like they won all of the games but that line looked really good.

After watching many of the Wild games, and especially the game on Tuesday against # 30 Columbus, the Wild obviously have NO LOCKERROOM LEADERSHIP. There was no emotion on the ice, nor the real desire to win.

What is really disappointing is watching playoff hockey knowing full well the Wild are several years away from being a solid playoff team, and are probably even further away from being a cup contender. I remember watching the North Stars in the playoffs and their great playoff run. It was probably the most exciting sporting event I have watched. It really is too bad we will not be experiencing this type of hockey in Minnesota anytime soon.

I'm disappointed that because Koivu comes back he automatically breaks up the top line which is producing better than ever. I'm not convinced Koivu is a good fit on that top line and I'm not sure the Wild's record would be any better than it currently is if he never left the lineup. It seems there is a lot of false player hype lately. So much of the team and coaching staff has changed since last year, but the performance hasn't. I'm convinced this team gets deflated because the goalies let in everything that comes their way and Koivu is not really a top line center nor a tremendous leader for this team. THe two things that need to change for this team (Koivu as captain and Backstrom)are stuck in contract politics and the only thing to do is turn a blind eye to this situation.