Wild's lost weekend in Ottawa ends in a loss
Minnesota Sports- The Minnesota Wild lost their equipment truck in a fire and they lost period to the Ottawa Senators 4-1 in a lost weekend in the Canadian capital.
From NHL.com
OTTAWA - Several players on the Minnesota Wild's roster were scrambling for equipment on Saturday after a van fire reduced much of the team's equipment to ruins Friday in an Ottawa parking lot.
Some second-string equipment landed in Ottawa on Saturday at about 9 a.m., after which everyone set about preparing skates, sticks and other gear for that evening's game against the Senators.
The new equipment didn't help out much. The Wild lost to the Senators 4-1 as goalie Mike Brodeur made 22 saves in his debut with the Senators and Erik Karlsson scored his first career goal.
The Wild's Martin Havlat broke up the shutout bid with a goal at the 4:40 mark in the third period.
Wild defenseman Nick Schultz put on shoulder pads he purchased for $200 at a local sporting goods store. Goaltender Niklas Backstrom wore a catching glove with burn marks across it, while backup Josh Harding had an old facemask with the wrong number.
Both goaltenders lost basically all of their belongings, which forced Fletcher to recall Anton Khudobin from AHL Houston in case Backstrom and Harding felt uncomfortable with their equipment.
"It's just unbelievable," forward Andrew Brunette said while his teammates were cutting and taping new sticks. "Your first thought is to make sure everybody was OK, obviously, but I never thought it was as serious as it was. To lose the amount of equipment we did, especially our goalies, it's a little bit of an obstacle here to overcome."
Brunette was one of the few who recovered all of his equipment unscathed.
"My stuff's OK. I was one of the lucky ones," he said, pointing to the adjacent locker of teammate Antti Miettinen. "Guys like Antti beside me lost everything. ... Our goalies, to have new gear and wearing stuff they're not used to, it's a pretty big deal."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune provided a rundown of who was most affected by the fire: captain Mikko Koivu; Martin Havlat; Andrew Ebbett; Miettinen; Cal Clutterbuck; Shane Hnidy; John Scott; Robbie Earl; Backstrom; Harding; James Sheppard and Nick Schultz.
The Wild had won 10 of 13 going into Saturday night's game. They play two more games before Christmas Day, so players won't get much time to adapt to their new equipment.
"The skates are going to be hard," Havlat said. "Just to get used to them, some guys need a few days, some guys need three or four weeks. It's going to be an interesting game tonight."
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