Ballard power news

Afternoon from high above the ground, where we're bouncing around the sky like a ping-pong ball. Pretty sickening flight to be honest. No cabin service, seatbelt sign on since we left the ground 40 minutes ago. Apparently, there's so much weather out there, we're taking a very, very long re-routing to St. Louis, like by way of Cali or something. In non-Nate Prosser news, at the end of Thursday’s morning skate at Xcel Energy Center, coach Mike Yeo pulled Charlie Coyle aside to give him a little pep talk. Yeo reiterated to me afterward, "I'm not unhappy with Charlie's camp," but he rose the bar so to speak the last 12 games of last season and the playoffs and he wants him to start making plays. That begins tonight at St. Louis when Coyle mans the right wing on a young top line against the big, bad Blues. "The biggest thing for me is I want to get all of our guys that I know are going to be with us feeling good about their game," Yeo said. "My only message to him was systemwise he … [Read more...] about Yeo on Charlie Coyle, Keith Ballard, Jason Zucker and more

The Wild’s 0 for 19 power play is taking on a life of its own. At least the players have a sense of humor about it. When the room opened up to reporters today, the guys were laughing. The reason? The inside joke in the room was when anybody asked about the power play, they were going to say, “This is what happens” when the beat writers design it. In practice today, coach Mike Yeo worked the power play with no penalty kill defending it. Ryan Suter said the No. 1 unit was a good 20 percent. Darcy Kuemper, the dude who became only the second goalie since 1943-44 to shut out three opponents in his first four starts of a season, quickly corrected him that it was actually 10 percent. Yeo said, “The second group was even better [than the first]. They didn’t have a goalie.” The best power plays in the league are 20 percent. That means, Yeo reminded, that they don’t score 80 percent of the time. “But if we don’t score right now every time, … [Read more...] about Wild has sense of humor about its ‘0-for’ power play

For a change, the Wild power play helped win a road game. After entering with one power-play goal on 44 chances in 14 previous road games, the Wild went 2 for 3 tonight at Arizona, the last coming off Zach Parise’s slam dunk with 5:53 left in regulation to force overtime en route to a 4-3 shootout win. Playing against a team that is now winless in nine straight at home, the Wild was forced to play a man short with 17 skaters because Jared Spurgeon left warmups sick. He was actually sick beforehand and tried to take some IV’s, but it didn’t work. It sounds like he has a similar stomach virus that forced Charlie Coyle to miss a practice last week at Ridder. Spurgeon’s absence coupled with Marco Scandella serving the final game of a two-game suspension really put the Wild in a tough spot tonight. Ryan Suter and Jonas Brodin took a lot of the responsibility, logging 33:47 and 31:54, respectively (Brodin’s first time over 30 in his regular-season career). On … [Read more...] about In a shocking turn of events, the power play lifts the shorthanded Wild to a road win