We’re not ready to declare winter over. Not as long as the Minnesota Wild have even the faintest hope of extending their current second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks. And after what we’ve witnessed so far, how much more can we expect?
The first-round triumph over Colorado was inspired after two opening losses in Denver, and wound up with victories in Games 6 and 7. Against Chicago, the response from a 2-0 deficit in games was nothing short of thrilling, in a 4-0 victory in Game 3.
Well, Game 4 of the series comes Friday night, at Xcel Center in Saint Paul. The Wild players are resilient enough to survive the loss of their top three goaltenders, with No. 4, Ilya Bryzgalov, silencing his critics with a huge shutout. They also had to survive the skill level of the Colorado Avalanche, the opening salvos from the defending Cup champion Blackhawks, and the often-absurd statements made by some columnists in Minneapolis.
If they were to read and believe some of the stuff written and said, the Wild and their faithful fans would believe that: Nobody really cares about the Wild, compared to the Twins, the Vikings, the Timberwolves, and even the Lynx; the Wild paid good money to Zach Parise, Jason Pominville and Mikko Koivu to score goals, but they don’t score every night; the Wild simply don’t have enough talent to play with the NHL’s top teams; and they may have come back against the Colorado Rockies, but now they’re facing the Blackhawks, and the Blackhawks are not the Avalanche.
   Whew!
When we last analyzed things, the Wild had just won Game 3 and 4 against Colorado, then they proceeded to lose Game 5 at Denver before coming back for a colossal Game 6 victory that squared the series at 3 games each. In Game 7, the Wild became the first of the series to win a game on the road, capturing the first-round series.
   Chicago, meantime, had beaten an outstanding St. Louis Blues team more promptly, earning a couple days off to await the Wild. The Wild won in Denver, flew the next day to Chicago, and opened the series the following day. The Wild played a terrific first game, dominating much of the action, but after rallying from a 2-0 deficit for a 2-2 tie, they fell victim to the mercurial Patrick Kane, who fooled everyone in the building with a deft fake back-pass, then sped around to the right and hoisted an amazing shot up into the roof of the net on the short side as Bryzgalov dropped to block a normal shot. Kane scored again on a dazzling pass play, and an empty-net goal made the final a deceptive 5-2.
When the Blackhawks broke open a 2-1 game to win 4-1 in Game 2, critics wrote that they had breezed to two easy victories over the Wild. That’s also when complaints arose that Parise, Pominville and Koivu weren’t scoring. What baseball writers don’t understand is that in hockey, you don’t get to step into the batter’s box unmolested three or four times a game and get your cuts; in hockey, you have to fight through guys trying to knock you down, break you up, and prevent you from ever getting a chance, and then you’ve got to beat a standout goaltender.
Besides, the best measure of how good the Wild have become is that the likes of Mikael Granlund, Nico Niederreiter, Erik Haula, and the rejuvenated Dany Heatley and Kyle Brodziak could rise up and be the heroes. Good hockey fans don’t care who scores as long as somebody scores enough to give the team a chance to win.
But there is more to the criticism. First of all, Parise was 3-8--11, which put him among the playoff scoring leaders, and, last I checked, an assist means the team scored a goal just as much as a goal does. Koivu and Pominville were both 1-5--6. Sidney Crosby, possible league MVP and certain NHL scoring champion, went through the first nine Penguins playoff games without scoring a goal. Do we think the media in Pittsburgh was clamoring to bench or demote Crosby, because he went through the whole first round and the first two games of its current series against the New York Rangers without scoring a single goal? Crosby was 0-6--6, meaning he had scored fewer goals than Parise, Koivu or Pominville, and he also was a minus-5. Teammate Paul Martin, the former Gopher from Elk River, was 0-6--6 but a plus-9, which led all NHL players through the playoff games of Sunday. On Monday night, Crosby got loose to score his first goal on a breakaway, but the comparison is still valid.
Also, Chicago is an outstanding team, maybe an awesome team, and maybe just as good as the Blackhawks team that eliminated the Wild in five games and won the Stanley Cup last spring. And yes, they are not the Colorado Avalanche. We know they’re not, because the Blackhawks finished third in the NHL’s Central Division, one spot ahead of the Wild, and one spot behind the St. Louis Blues, who were second. The Avalanche? Oh yeah, they won the division. So we know the Blackhawks aren’t the Avalanche, because the Avalanche won the division and Chicago was third.
Coming home trailing the Blackhawks two games to none was not a pleasant task, but also not an impossible one. Once again, Haula and Granlund proved that the Wild have scoring support. Haula, the former Gopher center from Finland, broke hard on the left and UMD’s own Justin Fontaine lofted a perfect pass, right to left across the slot, for a one-time deflection goal. Not bad for the checking line. Then an even more spectacular play that could have had four assists, winding up with Pominville getting the puck from Parise and relaying to Granlund cutting through the defense and across the slot to ruin Corey Crawford’s night with a backhander into the right edge for a 2-0 lead.
Finally it was Parise’s turn, deflecting Suter’s shot off the left pipe and whacking in the power-play rebound for his first goal of the series, fourth of this playoff season, and a 3-0 Wild lead late in the third period. With Crawford pulled for an extra skater, Neiderreiter made another highlight-video play to rush end-to-end and set up Granlund for an empty-net goal and a 4-0 victory. Bryzgalov was superb in goal for the shutout.
As for the oft-repeated slam against hockey that the Wild can never hope to match the fan support of the Twins, Vikings or Timberwolves, I found it interesting that going into this year’s NHL playoffs, Fox Sports North had established that the Twins pennant-deciding victory over the White Sox in 2010 was its all-time ratings leader, with a 15.3 household rating. Each rating point accounts for 17,280 households tuned in.
In this year’s Wild playoff, Game 1 against Colorado had an 8.1 rating, Game 2 a 7.7, Game 3 a 9.6, and Game 4 a Wild record on Fox at 12.7. Game 5 had an 11.2 household rating, and Game 6, at Xcel, had a 13.9 -- a record for any Wild telecast ever. But Game 7, in Denver, set a new standard. The Wild had a 16.4 household rating, for the highest rating of any event ever broadcast by Fox Sports North. The game also was worth a 32 share, which means 32 percent of all the Twin Cities TV sets that were turned on were tuned in to the Wild game. Even better, when word spread about Game 7 being in overtime, the statistics jumped to an 18.3 rating and a 49 share, well beyond the all-time record that broadcast was setting. We can only speculate on what the ratings will be like Friday night in Game 4.
So next time you hear some bozo claim that hockey can never attain the popularity of something like the Twins, just smile, because you know better.zf

John Gilbert has been writing sports for over 30 years. Formerly with the Star Tribune and WCCO. He currently does a daily radio show on KDAL AM.