Marco Rossi takes a wild victory over Utah – Wilderness Walk

I come in today on a pessimistic note, having just seen the Wild come from behind and beat the …….Hockey Club. They need a name. I was thinking of the Blizzard, or maybe the Icemen?

• The optimistic part of my comment is what a nice goal from Khus! The thing was, the escape looked pretty effortless. This guy has such amazing acceleration and top speed, but we never really get to see it. You would logically think that with so much speed and such good defensive insight, wouldn't that be a perfect match during 3-3? Khus has some great passing moves that are very subtle. Ek and Brodin are gone and we are burdened with guys in OT. Why not throw it across the boards???

• Our PK was…terrible against 2 low-ranking PPs. I mentioned earlier that I expect our PK to be good against 20 PPs and below, below average against teams 11-20, and awful against top PPs. They made both the Kings and Hockey Club PPs look stunning. This is unacceptable, even if Ek and Brodin are out. We cannot continue with this, it needs attention and mandatory practice of special teams is appropriate. I thought Boldy should be added to that rotation, I don't remember if I saw him there or not.

• New building and new sight lines for Goose. Until number 4 I didn't think the goals were largely his fault. His team saved him. Rossi and Boldy atoned for their sentences and were acquitted. That move by Boldy in the shootout was nice. He decided early on what he would do and executed it. Vejjie was sliding all night, so if someone had a good catch and scouted, he got a hat tip or a stick tap.

• Freddy could have done the same, but approached it too slowly. He's got some nice cunning, but that move wasn't a good one.

• Vejjie was strong in net, especially since he is a left or right catch IMO. It screws with the shooter's heads and makes things more difficult. Only Khusy had no problem just ripping one through him and both keepers have an equal 5-hole.

• But the way we outwitted the hockey club in the first half of the game made this game ours. Therefore, I don't completely agree that this was a stolen game. A few seasons ago, when we had all those six to five goals to sort things out, we were deservedly down in those games. We should have played this game and justice was served.

• The most important compliments go to the replay man who noticed offside, he gets a game puck. That was a big moment.

• What I didn't like, and this goes back to the Kings game as well, was all the passes that went into the opponent's skates and bodies. The Kings had done that to us twice, and I think there was a lot of that against the Jets as well. It's like they scouted us and knew where we were going and got there first. That might need a little adjustment.

• I also thought this might have been Marcus Johansson's strongest match of the year, perhaps during his tenure. He was strong with pucks, took points that directly influenced goals and was also in perfect position for catches many times. He didn't shy away from the physical part either (even though he didn't actually throw checks).

Well, this wasn't as pessimistic as I thought it would be. Utah should have a pretty decent club. I'm sure it's fun to play in front of a big audience. But the Wildbank another 2 points. The more I look, the more I imagine another center in the mix, like a Brock Nelson, and I have to wonder what kind of impact that could have? If we need someone like that, is there a way to get him fit before the deadline, like immediately? When I saw the boys skating off the ice after the win, I couldn't help but think they were missing a Tuch. I know he's a wing, but he's also a dangerous RHS wing. I think I'll be hopping on the ODC bandwagon for that particular move.