Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING TAKEOUT NEWS: 3-17-23.
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Hope everyone enjoyed St. Urho’s Day yesterday, anything happening today?
Mets closer Edwin Diaz probably out for the year after being injured celebrating a victory in the World Baseball Championships.
NCHC Frozen Faceoff at The X. North Dakota AND St. Patrick’s Day? Which bar will run out of beer…
No brackets here, so rooting for all the underdogs.
Wild Win in St. Louis Had Some of Everything, Including a Would-Be-Goalie-Fight
The goalie fight that wasn’t will forever be the standing memory of one of the craziest games in Wild history. Minnesota, down 3-1 at one point, beat the snot out of the Blues 8-5 on Wednesday, derailing Jordan Binnington in more ways than one. The St. Louis goalie barked at the Wild’s bench (despite losing at the time) in the second period.
Then, after Ryan Hartman scored and “inadvertantly” ran into Binnington’s pad, the goalie became completely unraveled. He threw a punch with his blocker (a no-no), and according to Marc-Andre Fleury, got someone in the family jewels as well. Now, it was nothing malicious, and some Wild fans didn’t see how they could give Hartman a penalty, but he had more than ample opportunity to get out of the way.
So Fleury, the future Hall of Fame goalie who’s mentioned recently he’s disappointed he’s never gotten into a fight in the NHL, skated the length of the ice and challenged Binnington. The officials stepped in and didn’t let the goalie fight we all wanted happen. And it all happened in front of the Natureboy Ric Flair, who was in attendance.
The best part? Flower was mic’d up.
Binnington is a clown and faces NHL discipline. The storied Blues franchise is far out of the race. But there’s never a dull game between those two.
Hartman had two goals, Ryan Reaves has two points in back-to-back games for the first time in his NHL career. Five points in three games for the Wild in the Kirill Kaprizov injury era.
The Wild, 11-0-3 over the last 14, gets a true acid test Saturday, when they host the best team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins, for a rare 1 p.m. matinee at The X.
GWH at Frozen Four; GMH in B10 Title Game with Holy Cross on Tap in NCAA?
It’s been seven years since the Gopher women’s hockey team has won the NCAA championship. That’s a long time for an institution that won four out of five ending in 2016. They’re the No. 2 seed in this weekend’s Frozen Four at Amsoil Arena in Duluth, playing Wisconsin tonight at 6. Top seeded Ohio State and Northeastern play the afternoon game. The winners play Sunday for the national championship. It’s appeared all year like the Gophers and Buckeyes were on this collision course. It’s exciting to have a team I’m remotely affiliated with (stats crew last three years) in such a position. It’s crunch time for the Gophers, who will lose no less than five seniors up front and four on the blueline. Abbey Murphy will return, but no one else from the top two lines will.
Hard to believe we’re in 2023 and they can’t get the semifinals on TV, so ESPN+ is the way to watch. The championship game is on ESPU Sunday at 3.
The hockey gods have a sense of humor. The Gophers are favorites to win the Big 10 tourney title Saturday against Michigan (and a likely No. 1 overall seed no matter what), but do you know who very well could await them in round one of the NCAA’s? Holy Cross, which would carry a losing record into the tournament if they’re able to beat fellow underdog Canisius on Saturday in the AHA Championship Game. (Here’s a really cool site with probabilities of each seed).
It’s hard to believe it’s been 17 years since arguably the biggest upset in college hockey history, as Tony Quesada stood on his head and Holy Cross beat the top seeded Gophers in Grand Forks. If they were to play next Friday, it’d be 17 years to the day. One of the more memorable moments of working in the minors was when the Houston Aeros had both Quesada and Danny Irmen, who was on that Gophers team, in the same locker room. It was an awkward first day of camp, to say the least. Quesada was 1-11 on a bad Aeros team that year.
Vikings Keep Smith, Mattison; What’s That Mean for Dalvin Cook?
The Vikings were rumored to cut Harrison Smith, who instead agreed to a restructured contract to stay in Minnesota another season. He’ll make up to $10 million in 2023.
What will happen to Dalvin Cook? The jury’s still out. The Vikings also re-signed Alexander Mattison yesterday - that was no guarantee. The oft-injured RB has a contract that will count more than $14 million against the cap this upcoming season.
Wolves Throw One Away vs. Celtics
Sure, the officiating wasn’t very good, but the Wolves let one slip away Wednesday at Target Center, falling 104-102 to Boston in a game they should have won.
The Wolves “announced” earlier Wednesday that they expect to welcome Karl Anthony Towns back in the “coming weeks.” It was a media update so ambiguous I’d be embarrassed to even link to it. He’d better be back in the “coming weeks” or he won’t be back at all.
The Wolves hit the road to face the Bulls and Raptors - two teams not currently in the top eight in the East.
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