Respect your elders

It wasn't the most solid victory, but it got the job done. The Minnesota Wild faced off against the New York Islanders friday night at the Xcel Energy Center and pulled out a 3-2 win. Owen Nolan broke a 2-2 tie with just over a minute to go in regulation.

This was my second game of the season watching the Wild boys in person. The result was good, which is more than I can say for a lot of the games I have attended over the years. As a special treat, the "sellout" crowd had the pleasure of watching 5-year-old YouTube sensation Josh Sacco perform the traditional "Let's Play Hockey." What a cutie!

The Wild were starting the game minus a few forwards, and with minor league call-ups as additions. Not making excuses, the hometown boys came out with another fairly slow start. I believe they did not register a shot on goal until about seven minutes into the first period.

Five for fighting
One highlight were a couple of good hockey fights. The first involved the Wild's Nathan Smith, who was playing in his first game since being called up from the Houston Aeros. It came at a good time when the team, and the building, needed some energy.

The other fight involved Shane Hnidy, and subsequently an absurb list of penalties assessed to the Wild's defenseman. From my seat, Hnidy made a good, clean hit along the boards on an Islander. Not long after on the shift, Islander Tim Jackman was duking it out with Hnidy.

I didn't quite see the start of the fight, since I was watching the puck, but I have a pretty good guess as to what happened. Jackman wanted to stick up for his teammate, so he decided to make a go of it with Hnidy. Predictably, the pair received five-minute majors for fighting. Not so predictably, Hnidy got hit with a two-minute minor for instigating, and a 10-minute major for game misconduct.

The problem for fans in the stands was that only the first two penalities were announced in the arena. So my mom and I were puzzled as to why Hnidy spent a good chunk of the second period in the box. These penalties just add to the list of bad calls the Wild have seen lately.

Hockey fan etiquette
Nolan gave the Wild a 1-0 lead in the first period. I wish I could write some more details about the goal, but I don't have a very good firsthand account. Let me explain.

A note to all novice hockey fans out there: please wait for a break in the action to leave or return to your seat. This means, don't get up to get yourself another beer and nachos while there's play going on. When you break this hockey-fan-etiquette rule, you block the view of those behind you and may cause them to miss important plays.

Yes, I am bitter. And yes, I missed seeing Nolan's first goal of the night because I was just getting settled into my seat after standing up to let a gentleman go back to his seat.

Back to the game
The Islanders took the lead with two unanswered goals, one appearing to be another soft goal given up by Niklas Backstrom. The score remained 2-1 for quite sometime, and I was getting worried that I had missed the Wild's only goal for the night. After all, they weren't playing the most commanding game, but it was a pretty good match with the Islanders, a team with 23 points in their division.

Wild captain Mikko Koivu scored a beauty to tie the game, and I did not miss that one. Things kept moving along after that, and it looked like we were about to see some more extra hockey. I was already praying the game wouldn't get to a shootout because the Wild had not scored a shootout goal in their past two games where they had the chance.

But the 37-year-old Nolan showed the younger guys how it's done. After taking a couple high sticks and then getting cross-checked and held down by the goalie in front of the net (all of which apparently did not warrant penalties), Nolan was in perfect position to score the game-winning goal with just 1:07 left in regulation.

It was a much-needed win for them, especially after what sounded like a very frustrating practice the day before. Sticks were flying, hitting the glass and being crumpled into sawdust. After that, you need an inspiring win.

They're off until Wednesday, when they hope to also have more injured players returning. Sometimes long breaks in between games can be good, or bad. Let's hope they can come up with some kind of momentum and get a few more wins under their belt, especially when they are on home ice.