It’s rare when you can get an NHL assistant general manager to laugh when you’ve told him you hope his team loses Game 6 of a Stanley Cup Playoff series. But I managed.
It helps that the assistant GM is Norm Maciver, who has proven to be just as astute in helping put the Chicago Blackhawks together as he was helping the UMD Bulldogs compete at the highest level as a clever and creative puck-moving defenseman.
Maciver still lives in Duluth, and he found time to sneak home whenever possible to see his son Steven play for the Denfeld Hunters. And, recall that when he got his day with the Stanley Cup he brought it to Duluth to show off to hockey fans at AMSOIL Arena, and later took it on a tour of the Denfeld dressing room.
I had seen Norm last week, shortly after the Minnesota Wild had beaten the Blackhawks 4-2 at Xcel Center. It was such an invigorating victory that when I nearly collided with Norm in the press box, without thinking, I said, “Great game, wasn’t it?”
Norm said, “Are you kidding? We played awful.”
Of course, I immediately realized Maciver couldn’t fully appreciate the other team in that setting, and could only see the Blackhawks perspective professionally. We connected again Tuesday morning by telephone, for my KDAL 610 radio show in Duluth, and he evaluated the series, as both teams prepared for Game 6.
“The Wild played exceptionally well in Game 4, and they have all through the series,” said Maciver, whose Blackhawks had ousted Minnesota in a five-game first-round series last year at this time. “If you look at the forwards on both teams, we aren’t quite as deep as we were last year, so our advantage 1-through-12 is not as much as it was. A, the Wild are faster and have more skill, with young guys like Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula and Justin Fontaine. You can also see the improvement in those three young defensemen the Wild have -- Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and Marco Scandella.
“Last year, Jonathan Toews struggled and so did Mikko Koivu, mainly because they were playing against each other. A lot of times, the top guys and the top lines cancel each other out, and it’s your depth that can win a series.”
In goal, Maciver’s Blackhawks have Corey Crawford, who often is criticized for not being “elite” enough, while the Wild has a musical-chairs rotation that now sees Ilya Bryzgalov in the nets as the No. 4 man on the Wild goalie depth chart.
“Last year, Niklas Backstrom got hurt before the first game, and Josh Harding got hurt in about the third game, so the Wild had to go to Darcy Kuemper,” Maciver recalled. “So it seems like more of the same, but you’ve got to give a lot of credit to the Wild coaching staff for the way they’ve got that team playing. We used to get a lot of scoring chances against the Wild, but now we get none; they’ve limited our chances.
“Crawford gets a lot of criticism, and a lot of that is because we’ve had a very good offensive team. There are nights we have the puck 70 percent of the time, and when we give up the puck, he might get beat by one. But last year, we won the Cup, and we never would have won it without Corey playing the way he did in Game 6.”
Then I asked Maciver, with Game 6 in St. Paul Tuesday night and a potential Game 7 back in Chicago Thursday night, if he wouldn’t really like to see the excitement of a Game 7 back home.
“No way,” he said. “We went through such a nerve-wracking Game 7 against Detroit last year, I’d just as soon not go through that again. I’m all for us winning it in Game 6.”
We talked for a bit more, then I told Norm I’d be seeing him later Tuesday, at Xcel Center. “And I’ll be pulling for you to get the chance to go back home for Game 7,” I said.
That’s when Norm laughed. It’s not often you can get an NHL assistant general manager to get a laugh out of someone suggesting they hope his team loses.
Nobody knows, but if the Wild could win Game 6 and take the Blackhawks back for Game 7, Minnesota fans can cheer some more, and if the Blackhawks end the Wild season in Game 6, or 7, at least we’ll get a chance to see the Stanley Cup, close up.

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