11/20/2008 - St. Paul, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pavol Demitra had a goal and an assist to help his new team, Vancouver, defeat his old team, Minnesota, as the Canucks took a 3-2 win over the Wild at Xcel Energy Center.
Demitra had spent the previous two seasons with Minnesota, but signed as a free agent with the Canucks in the offseason. Daniel Sedin scored the game- winning goal with 8:19 left in the third period while Curtis Sanford made 28 saves for the Canucks, who are 6-0-2 in their last eight games.
"If we're gonna get first place these are the teams we have to beat," said Sanford. "I know I'm not playing a lot, but I come to the rink every night ready to play."
Mikko Koivu tallied both goals and Niklas Backstrom stopped 24 shots in the loss for the Wild, who had a three-game winning streak stopped.
"It was a tough loss," said Koivu. "Once they scored the winning goal we weren't able to answer and they got out of here with the win."
With the score tied in the third period, the Canucks took the lead with just over eight minutes to play. Sedin got an initial shot off on net that Backstrom stopped, but the rebound went to Demitra at the left side. From down low to the left of the net, Demitra centered the puck back to Sedin, who one- timed it home.
Minnesota got Backstrom out of the net in the final minute of the game and had a couple of scoring chances, but Sanford made the stops.
Neither side got on the board as Sanford made eight saves while Backstrom stopped seven shots in the opening period.
Minnesota drew first blood as Koivu blasted a slap shot from the left circle that hit off the arm of Sanford at the 7:16 mark of the second period.
Vancouver, though, answered just 44 seconds later as Steve Bernier banged in a loose puck in front of the net.
With under six minutes to play in the second, Koivu found himself on a clean shorthanded breakaway and he buried a wrister into the left corner of the net for a 2-1 lead.
However, the Canucks again answered as Demitra's shot from a sharp angle at the left side of the net hit off the stick of a Wild defender and snuck past Backstrom with 3:50 to play in the second for a power-play goal.
Game Notes
The Wild host St. Louis on Saturday...Vancouver wraps up its four-game road trip in Pittsburgh on Saturday...Vancouver has both games against Minnesota this season...Vancouver went 1-for-4 on the power play while Minnesota finished 0-for-3 with the man advantage.
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Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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