KRIEGER: This loss is win for Lemaire, Wild

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 6, 2008 at 11:44 p.m.

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Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn / Getty Images

Wild coach Jacques Lemaire, shown last week, couldn't admit it, but by losing, his team will face its desired foe, Colorado.

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Wily old Jacques Lemaire got just what he wanted Sunday even if, in the tradition of liar's poker, he couldn't exactly say so.

The only coach the Minnesota Wild has ever known insisted his team would play to win its regular-season finale against the Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Even though his team was locked into the third playoff seed in the West, he would not sit his top players. He wanted his guys sharp going into the postseason.

Upon further review, Lemaire protested a tad too much. His claims made sense except for one small detail: Going into Sunday's game, his team was 2-5-0-1 against Calgary this season and 5-2 against Colorado. These were his two possible first-round playoff foes.

All gamesmanship aside, you had to assume he wanted the Avs.

Had Minnesota won in regulation Sunday, its first-round playoff series would have been against the Flames because Calgary led Colorado by a single point for the sixth playoff seed.

So when the Wild scored first, it looked as if Lemaire might be taking the whole "finish strong" thing a little too far for his own good. His team was 36-4-4 this season when it drew first blood.

In fact, when the Wild took a 2-1 lead into the dressing room for the second intermission, history suggested it was about to relegate the Avs to the seventh seed and a date with San Jose. Prior to Sunday, the Wild was 32-0-3 this season when leading after two periods.

Salvador Dali might have been required to paint the scene. The Wild wanted the Avs in the first round. The Avs wanted the Wild over the red-hot Sharks, notwithstanding their regular-season difficulties in St. Paul. And yet, with 20 minutes to play, both were headed for matchups they didn't want.

Just beneath the surface, there were a few tells as to the eventual outcome. The most obvious was that while Lemaire was good as his word up front, using all his top skaters, he elected to sit starting goaltender Niklas Backstrom, going with backup Josh Harding instead.

"You can handicap that any way you want," Avs coach Joel Quenneville said behind a poker face of his own. "At the end of the day, we're still playing 'em. Everybody's got their ways of interpreting that message. So we got 'em. We're ready."

If you looked closely, there was a second tell: With the score tied at 3 in the final minute of regulation, Avs captain Joe Sakic went to the penalty box for hooking. When Lemaire sent out his power-play unit with a chance to win in regulation and earn a first-round series with the Flames, Marian Gaborik, the Wild's top scorer, was not on it.

When the power play continued in overtime, with the Avs guaranteed the point that gave them the sixth playoff seed, Gaborik was out there.

And then there was the third and final tell: A television camera caught Lemaire smiling behind the Wild bench in overtime, when a coach who actually wanted to win might have been upset at giving up two third-period power-play goals, especially to a team that had struggled with the man advantage as the Avs did much of the season.

In truth, the whole thing had been expertly choreographed. You could not accuse the Wild of tanking exactly, but Lemaire's bunch was not quite loaded for bear, either.

"It reminded me of an All-Star Game," said Wild forward Brian Rolston. "It wasn't a whole lot of intensity."

"Definitely, it's going to be much more physical," Avs forward Peter Forsberg said of the first-round playoff series that starts Wednesday. "Today, I think both teams were just waiting."

After a disappointing first-round loss last year to Anaheim, the eventual Stanley Cup champion, Minnesota decided it was not big or tough enough. So general manager Doug Risebrough went out and added muscle in the form of defenseman Sean Hill and forwards Todd Fedoruk and Chris Simon.

The Avs came to a similar conclusion around the trading deadline this year, adding Adam Foote and Ruslan Salei to the blue line, not to mention Forsberg up front.

As if to reinforce this message, Avalanche forward Ian Laperriere picked a fight with Gaborik near the end of overtime. When he emerged to talk to the wretches afterward, the Avs agitator was dressed impeccably in a black suit, looking very much the gentleman.

"I wouldn't make a big deal out of it," Laperriere said, smiling.

The Avs, of course, would like nothing better than for the Wild to take some silly penalties trying to retaliate for Laperriere's goonery early in the playoff series.

If Lemaire has anything to say about it, you can be pretty sure his team won't do anything stupid. He got the matchup he wanted. Now it's up to the Avalanche to make him wish he'd wished for something else.

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