On a night when all 30 teams face off, the Wild draw their expansion cousins, the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team that has had a tougher go of it since their inception, compared to the Wild. So far this year, the Blue Jackets are 3-4-0, while the Wild are undefeated in regulation at 4-0-1. The Blue Jackets are on a 3 game losing streak skating into St. Paul and are 1-3 on the road so far this young season. The Blue Jackets appear so far this year to be a high risk-high reward team having scored 8 first period goals, 6 second period goals and 6 third period goals while giving up 6 first period goals, 11 second period goals, and 9 third period goals so far this year. Meanwhile, the Wild seem to struggle in the first period having only scored 3 goals in 5 games so far. However, they take over in the second period with 8 so far and 6 in the third, while giving up only 2, 3 and 5 goals in the first, second and third periods, respectively.

All said, this year’s Blue Jackets appear to be a significantly improved club from years past. Guys like Christian Backman, Derek Dorsett, Umberger, Huselius, Commodore, Filatov, Tyutin and Voacek have all contributed significantly so far this young season. Having struggled over the last 7-8 years, the Blue Jackets have a wealth of riches in terms of players, namely first round draft picks. Those players include Klesla (4th overall in 2000), Leclaire (8th overall in 2001), Nash (1st overall in 2002), Picard (8th overall in 2004), Brassard (6th overall in 2006), Voracek (7th overall in 2007) and Filatov (6th overall in 2008).

Starting for Columbus: Leclaire, Nash, Huselius, Malhorta, Tyutin, and Klesla.

Starting for Minnesota: Backstrom, Koivu, Brunette, Miettinen, Burns and Schultz.

Backup goaltender, Pascal Leclaire, is being called upon by Ken Hitchcock. Maybe because the Wild are offensively challenged, maybe because Leclaire’s stats against the Wild are better than Fredrik Norrena. Leclaire was 1-1-0 with a 1.01 Goals Against Average and a .965 Save Percentage and one shutout in two starts last season and a 3-2-0 lifetime record against the Wild with a 2.38 GAA and a .920 SV% and one shutout in five career matches against Minnesota. Meanwhile, Norrena was 0-2- with a 3.50 GAA and a .862 SV% in two starts in 2007-08 and 2-2-0 lifetime against the Wild with a 2.98 GAA and a .887 SV% in five all-time contests against the Wild.

Backstrom, as usual, playing very solid in the beginning of the game. Peca is back for Columbus after suspension for touching a referee, while Owen Nolan is back from injury for the Wild. The Wild’s own 18 year old rook, Colton Gillies, is off tonight as a healthy scratch while Gaborik is still out injured.

Minnesota killed off their 18th straight penalty to remain perfect on the PK. Then Minnesota had a two man advantage on the powerplay with some good chances, but Leclaire was equal to the task.

A crazy ping-pong goal scored in the first period by Pierre-Marc Bouchard on a goofy play where Nolan swiped and missed at a puck at his midsection ala Pouliot’s goal against Buffalo, but with the opposite result. The puck was then cleared back to the blue line when Zidlicky shot high and wide from the right side and the puck bounced off the glass behind Leclaire and came out on the left side, Leclaire’s right, where Butch slammed it home into a wide open net. At the end of one, Wild 1, Blue Jackets 0. While outshot the Jackets 12-5 in the first, with a very solid effort by the Wild and a good road period by Columbus.

The puck continued to bounce crazily in the 2nd period, but not to the clear benefit of either team. The Wild had some great chances in the first 5 minutes for Bouchard, Nolan, Schultz, Koivu, Veilleux, and Weller, yet no goals. Then, Leclaire went out and Norrena came in with 14:36 left in the 2nd on an equipment problem. Leclaire did not return in the 2nd period. Zidlicky has an absolute laser from the point and a puck rush ala Brent “Bobby Orr” Burns, but to no avail. Then, the Wild had a two minute even strength puck possession in Columbus’ zone, but no shots on net. The tide seemed to turn in Columbus’ favor with less than 10 minutes left in the 2nd period and continued in their favor, but this time it was Backstrom who answered the call, not allowing a single goal through two periods. Johnsson had a great defensive play against Rick Nash on a 1-on-1 where Johnsson denied Nash’s chance to register a shot on Backstrom. Backstrom made a phenomenal, left pad save on Chimera in the closing minutes of the 2nd period and trainer, Don Fuller, was hit on the bench by a wayward puck similar to the Tom Renney incident last night. At the end of two periods, it’s still 1-0, Wild. The shot gap was closed by the Blue Jackets in the 2nd period where the Wild led the Jackets only by 1 shot, 17-16 through two periods.

Onto the 3rd period.

Rick Nash was denied on a short handed breakaway by Backstrom in the opening minutes of the 3rd period. He's now 0-7 on breakaways this year now.

Backstrom is the story of this game. Without him, the Jackets would be in the lead. A very, very solid game and so far all season. In fact, he’s looked this way since training camp began. And, with good reason, as Backstrom is in the final year of his current contract.

Koivu to Nolan, GOALLLLLLLL!!!!!!! A no look, back hand pass from behind the Jackets’ net to a wide open Owen Nolan who closes the deal and scores. Welcome back Owen Nolan.

Now it’s time to protect the two goal lead in the 3rd period. Hopefully the Wild learned their lesson in the last game against the Sabres when they coughed up the game with less than 4 minutes to go in the game.

Backstrom was knocked down behind the Wild goal and a B.S. non-call by the refs. Backstrom appeared to be injured afterwards, stretching while the puck was out of the Wild zone and stretching during the T.V. timeout, but he stayed in the game so it’s probably nothing too serious. It would be nice to know why no call was made on the play by the refs. He was clearly knocked down. If Peca can’t touch the refs,and gets suspended three games for that, Columbus should have been called on that play.

And Backstrom’s shutout bid was ruined by Rostislav Klesla assisted by Peca at 11:34 of the 3rd period on a shot from the point that got through the traffic and past Backstrom. Here we go again! You know what they say about a 2 goal lead in hockey, huh?

As the game progessed, Nick Schultz made a great defensive play on a 2-on-1 where he took away the passing lane and tipped Huselius’ shot over the net and out of play with 5:40 left in the 3rd period.

Derick Brassard then went down following the immediate face off after that T.V. timeout. Brassard may have taken a the back of Belanger’s skate blade to the face after falling down after the face off.

A questionable penalty was called with 3:35 left in the game on Nick Schultz for hooking which the replay clearly did NOT show. He had one hand on his stick and one hand on the Jackets’ player’s back and pushed him which caused the Columbus player to fall, selling the penalty to the ref.

PK #19. Backstrom lost his stick, but regained it. Columbus crashed the net, but the Wild hang on and are now 19 for 19 on the PK with 1:30 left in game

The Jackets had problems getting Norrena out of net in the closing minutes and took a time out with 39.1 seconds left in game during which they then successfully pulled their goaltender.
Burns sent one deep on open net, but it was too slow and wasbrushed out of the open net by the Columbus defender.

Then the unthinkable happened. Columbus scored with 11.5 seconds left in game to tie game. Or did they? All of the Wild players went nuts claiming the tip was played above the shoulders. The shot came from the point and was tipped down into the net past Backstrom. And for the second game in a row, the Wild cough up a two goal lead in the third period and skate into overtime. The play was reviewed and it was decided the goal counted. In fairness, the replay looked like it should count. ACTUALLY THE CALL ON THE ICE WAS REVERSED AND IT’S NO GOAL! (I actually typed the preceeding sentences before they made the call; respectfully, I think they blew it on the replay; it should be interesting in the Columbus locker room).

After the game, the Wild’s room was happy, yet subdued. The Columbus room was very quiet with hushed expletives flying about the reversed call at the end of the game. Apparently, Ken Hitchcock avoided comment on the call reversal, but was clearly unhappy with the disallowed goal.

Nolan was happy to be back playing with the team. He commented on the number of chances he had and actually thought that the goal he scored was the worst of his chances. He did say that, in practice, he had seen Koivu do the no look backhand pass to the man in the slot, so he hustled up and got there in time to get the feed and pull the trigger.

Backstrom indicated that he was not hurt on the play where he was knocked down behind the net, but just wanted to make sure after it happened, thus leading to all of the stretches afterwards while remaining on the ice. It was not clear what happened to Pascal Leclaire, but it’s safe to assume that it was injury related and not just an equipment issue as earlier speculated.

Rick Nash told us that, clearly, during the review of the potential game tying goal, they thought the call would be upheld on review. However, to his credit, he did not whine about that or about missing his seventh straight break-away on the year. He couldn’t see how the reviewed goal was a high stick, but the call was a high stick and those are the rules was what he told the media. Interesting side note, some high profile media guys in the elevator were surprised that the video review took away the goal, but they also commented that the rule is all about the crossbar which is only 4 feet high and not, as some people surmise, about playing the puck over one’s shoulders as is mistakenly assumed by the masses. That said, considering that the guy who tipped the puck in is over 6 feet tall, 4 feet is not the same as his shoulder height. Even I got the rule wrong regarding the stick being over the shoulder vs. over the cross bar height.

Wild escape with their lives and a win. The Wild continue to be the only team in the Western Conference without a loss in regulation. The Wild are now 5-0-1 on the year while the Blue Jackets drop to 3-5-0 and clearly deserved at least one point tonight. Backstrom made 25 saves on the night. Next up, the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday at 7 pm in a nationally televised game on VERSUS.

Great game by Columbus to fight back and come one video replay review away from going into overtime with all of the momentum. Folks, the Jackets are back and much better than ever!

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