When word spread like wild fire around the interwebs late Sunday night that San Jose GM Doug Wilson had sent Dany Heatley to the Minnesota Wild for Martin Havlat, let’s just say the reaction was a mixed review. On Twitter, many Sharks fans rejoiced in the loss of Daniel James Heatley, some were quite upset over his departure, citing that they were crying and shaking *facepalm*, and yet others took  to the mean streets of Trash Talk City. But instead of being a negative nancy about the loss of Heatley, let’s recap the good about his short time sporting the Teal and Black.

The Life and Times of Dany Heatley —

September 12, 2009 - Dany Heatley gets traded from Ottawa to San Jose after demanding to be set free.  San Jose sent Milan Michalek and Jonathan Cheechoo in exchange.

October 8, 2009 – San Jose’s home opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets and Dany’s first game in his new home arena.   Sending the puck past Mathieu Garon on a penalty shot, Heatley scored his first hat trick for San Jose, capping the Sharks 6-3 win over Columbus.

November 20, 2009 – Heatley scores his second hat trick of the season in a 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

January 6, 2010 – San Jose Sharks vs St. Louis Blues.  Heatley scores on a breakaway in overtime to give San Jose the 2-1 win.

January 30, 2010 – Who scores using their face? Dany Heatley does, that’s who. The puck deflects off Heatley’s face and into the net in San Jose’s 5-2 win over the Minnesota Wild.

September 16, 2010 – The world finds out that Dany Heatley is in fact, a horrible baseball player. The San Jose Sharks have this campaign of tv commercials depicting their players as other professions. Dany Heatley’s was all too easy to chose as he bounced the first pitch during a 2010 San Francisco Giants baseball game.

December 2, 2010 - Heatley’s return to Ottawa. No one expected this to be a walk in the park and it didn’t turn out to be one.  Fans threw Heatley jerseys on the ice, held up signs that portrayed him as a traitor, as well did the Ottawa Sun with their very public display of dislike for the man with this picture.

April 14, 2011 – Game one of the Western Conference Quarter Finals.  Just 30 seconds into the game, Heatley puts the Sharks up 1-0 against the Los Angeles Kings.

May 6, 2011 – Heatley scores from his knees on a pass from Ryane Clowe to tie the game 3-3 against the Detroit Red Wings.

May 18, 2011 – Logan Couture scores the opening goal of Game 2 against the Vancouver Canucks thanks to a pin point pass from Dany Heatley.

There are many more good things that Dany Heatley has done during his short lived time in the South Bay, and there are some not so good things. I, for one, choose to enjoy the time that we Sharks fans had with him. And personally, I think he just missed Devin Setoguchi so much he agreed to go to Minnesota and rekindle their bromance.

Stephanie Lee
NHLHS San Jose Sharks Correspondent
@OhMySwed3
stephanie@nhlhotstove.com

What was looking to be a promising 4 game road trip for the Wild turned into yet another inconsistent spread of games. Prior to leaving the confines of the Excel Arena people were talking about how good this team is, about the potential they are showing, and how Coach Todd Richards has been able to turn this team around form what they were at the start of the season. Finally, it looked as if they were heading out on the road a more disciplined team, playing shut down defense against some of the league’s top talent while staying out of penalty trouble.

Heading to Columbus they were only 2 points back from being tied with Vancouver for the lead in the division and looking for some payback from the last time these two teams met. Coming into the X for the Wild’s second home game the Columbus Blue Jackets walk out winners after RJ Umberger scored the game winner on a shorthanded goal. Determined to not let it happen again the Wild were focused on picking up their third win in a row.

Although it wouldn’t be easy with the Jackets off to their best start in franchise history at 8-4-0 and Garon with two shutouts in a row, the Wild were up for the test. Jose Theodore stood on his head saving 35 shots while only giving up 2 goals. Brent Burns had his first multi goal game of his career netting 2 PPGs but the biggest play came from the NHL’s hits leader Cal Clutterbuck. Clutterbuck chased a puck into the Columbus zone and laid a massive hit on the Jackets Jason Voracek taking out two players at once then skating to the top of the crease where he was able to net the game winner from an Eric Nystrom pass.

Winning 3-2 Jose Theodore said that the team was playing with a lot of confidence and it showed. With 3 more road games it looked as if this team could easily take the next two playing teams they have had historically good success against in the past, but the one sure thing about this Wild team is that they have proven to be consistently inconsistent.

Heading into Atlanta to face a Thrashers team who the Wild had a lifetime record of 6-1-2 a majority thought this would be a sure thing. Atlanta ranked in the bottom of the league in GAA (3.60) and PK% (75.5) witch the Wild matched up well with and wanted to take full advantage of, but the one thing over looked was that they were also in the top ten in the league in goals per game (3.66).

This was a game that showcased 3 of the NHL’s top defensemen in Brent Burns, Dustin Buyfuglien, and Tobias Enstrom. Burns coming off his two goal game was tied with Buyfuglien for goals among defensemen with 5 each. While what was thought to be a game the Wild could take turned into a scoring clinic for the Thrashers. Playing completely flat throughout the game the Wild left Backstrom out to dry on multiple goals.

Losing 5-1 the Thrashers controlled the tempo throughout the game. On multiple goals the Wild defense made costly turnovers and was unable to clear the crease where unchecked Atlanta players put away easy goals. The play of Justin Falk and Cam Barker was so bad that Coach Richards had to split them up and pinning them to Brent Burns and Nick Schultz. Although a little better, the defense still couldn’t get going. Though not all on blame is on the defense, Mikko Koivu failed to pick up a player trailing on a breakaway behind him where the Thrashers were able to score yet again.

Even though they took a beating, the game was not without some high points. Antti Miettinen scored the lone goal for the Wild on a power play goal in his first game back from a concussion on a Dustin Brown hit to the head playing the LA Kings. The Wild played almost the whole game before committing their fist penalty with just less than 3 minutes left in the game, but then took one more 2 minutes later. Niklas Backstrom played a solid game despite giving up 5 goals. Saving 29 out of 34 shots he was the main reason that they had a chance going into the third.

So after losing in Atlanta the Wild hoped to turn it around playing the Panthers the following night. With his great perfor mance in Columbus, Jose Theodore got the call in net giving Backstrom the night off in back to back games. After the poor showing from the defense in Atlanta the Wild called up Marco Scandella from their AHL affiliate the Huston Aeros scratching Justin Falk from the game.

Giving up 2 early goals less than a minute apart Theodore collected himself and shut down the Panther the rest of the night. Cal Clutterbuck was able to cut the lead in half tying Brent Burns in team goals with 5, but it was too little too late. The offense of the Wild just couldn’t get anything going for a second night in a row and dropped their second game of the trip. Jose Theodore and Thomas Vokoun played lights out not giving any ground to the opposing team and being the reason for such a low scoring game.

At the end of play Steve Brenier took a run at the Wild’s Brent Burns, Burns put his hands up and caught Brenier in the face with the butt-end of his stick. Brenier went to the ice immediately. Burns received a fighting major and game misconduct penalty for the incident. Brenier was taken to the hospital where he received medical attention but will need facial surgery to correct the broken orbital bone in his face. Acknowledged by both teams, Burns is not a dirty player and accidents happen. It was reported that Burns was so worked up over the incident that he was feeling physically sick after. The following day Burns had a conference call with the league and was handed a 2 game suspension.

Heading to Tampa a player short and dropping 2 of the 3 games the Wild needed a big win to salvage this road trip. With Burns out the Wild called back home and put Marek Zidlicky on a flight to fill their hole in defense. Zidlicky didn’t make the trip to play the Thrashers and Panthers due to a groin injury but desperate times call for desperate measures. Backstrom got the call to play net and knew the Wild would be leaning on him heavily.

Tampa was looking to right their ship losing 5 of the last 6 games but the Wild offense finally came to play. Being outshot 16-6 Cal Clutterbuck, John Madden, and Antti Miettinen all scored in the first while Backstrom only let on through on a blast from Martin St. Louis. Quietly dominate Backstrom then proceeded to play how he has all season long not allowing Tampa another goal the rest of the game.

The Wild walked out of Tampa with the win and a big boost in confidence. Martin Havlat had 3 assists; Madden had a goal and assist, while Antti Mietinen scored his second in 3 games. Backstrom stopped a season high 37 pucks in the win improving his stats to 1.98 GAA and .937 SV%. Despite the solid win Cal Clutterbuck was pulled from the game in the second period and listed as having an upper body injury.

Finishing the trip 2-2 is not so bad when you look and see how it could have ended. Looking as if Coach Richards has fixed the penalty problem the team had at the beginning of the year his focus now needs to look at the offense of the team and possibly trying to fill the defensive holes that were made apparent on the trip. The team’s inconsistency if continued will be the reason why they fail this year. On the bright side though, the tandem of Niklas Backstrom and Jose Theodore is looking like a solid one two punch for the Wild and being able to rely on both your goaltenders is huge.

Josh Sargent
NHLHS Minnesota Wild Correspondent
Facebook: @Josh_Sargent

• Patrick Kane knows he needs to grow up, as he addresses the media one day after scandalous photos of him and teammates surfaced.  ”For us, obviously, it’s not the way we want to represent the team.” Kane said.  As long as his play remains steady on the ice, I do not see what the big deal is.
• Despite losing by three goals the Blue Jackets held an optional skate with only Mathieu Garon and Milan Jurcina participating.  ”We were going to skate once, so we will skate tomorrow,” said coach Ken Hitchcock.
• The Red Wings win as they actually protect their third period lead.
• Five straight loses now for the Predators as they were simply outplayed by the Red Wings.  Both teams now boast 61 points.  ”We know we’re letting teams back in it,” defenseman Ryan Suter said. “We’ve got to get it turned around now or it will come back to haunt us down the road.”
• With the standings so tight in the Western Conference, the Blues lament their 2-1 record on this recent road trip.  ”Well, in hindsight (the 2-1 trip) looks fine,” coach Davis Payne said. “But the fact that we didn’t get points in Vancouver, to me, is something we’ve got to find a way to improve.“

Northwest

• The Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames face off tonight.  One team has to break their winless streak.
• Terry Frei of The Denver Post writes a nice peice of Matt Duchene and his disappointment in losing a faceoff and a puck battle to veteran Mike Modano.
• The Edmonton Journal renames the Battle of Alberta the Battle of the Biggest Losers.
• Brent Burns wears the concussion-reducing M11 helmet after missing most of the season.  ”I think it’s more making sure I can do everything I can to help prevent another,” said Burns.
• Mason Raymond added a playmaking element to his game making him just that much more dangerous.  “He’s a good player and he could be even better, I think,” said Mikael Samuelsson.

Pacific

• The Ducks found their secret weapon on the shootout: James Wisniewski.  ”I’m riding a hot streak,” said Wisniewski.  ”They’re going with the big Polish righty.”
• Modano scored two goals last night for the first time in two years. “I’ve been feeling much better lately,” Modano said. “I think it’s just a combination of some valuable time off that [coach] Marc [Crawford] has given me, and just being able to rest up and primarily focus on the games.”
• Defenseman Jack Johnson is questionable for tonight’s game, but if this were a playoff game he would play.  ”It’s going to take a few days before I feel good again. Hopefully it feels good sooner than later,” said Johnson.
• Coyotes leading scorer Scottie Upshall will be re-evaluated for a lower-body injury.  Depending on the extent of the injury GM Don Maloney will need to find another offensive weapon. “Number 1, we’re just waiting to see if this is something significant, long term, then we probably have to dial up our search for another offensive player,” Maloney said.
• The Sharks may have more problems on defense as Marc Eduard Vlasic and Dan Boyle could miss tonight’s game. “We don’t anticipate it being serious,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said.

Alexander Monaghan
NHLHS Editor
amonaghan@nhlhotstove.com
Twitter: @NHLHotStove