Zenon Konopka double-minor for high sticking Jason Demers - GIF

This is a bad call, actually it's pathetic, as Wild tough guy Zenon Konopka was given a double minor for high sticking. You can see by the GIF that Konokpa never touched Jason Demers. The Sharks scored on the power play. You can bet that the Wild GM might be giving the NHL front office a call tomorrow. s/t CJZERO

@blldgshockey11 Nope, not at all
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 13, 2013

Are the Wild a soft team?

English: Kadri at the 2010 world juniors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Michael Russo's blog today. Russo asked Yeo about the Wild being called a quote-unquote “soft” team.

“First off, obviously who’s the first [player] to jump on top of him [Kadri]?” Yeo said. “[Ryan] Suter. So to say that we didn’t do anything, that’s false actually. And if you want to get into it, it’s this simple really: They’ve got [Colton] Orr on the bench, they’ve got [Fraser] McLaren (he actually didn’t play, so I’m not positive whom Yeo meant), they’ve got [Mark Fraser]. They’ve got one after another. So if we go after Kadri, well, are they going to go after Konopka? No. They’re going to go after one of our top guys. They’ve got more down the line where they can keep playing that game.

“So where we have to be better is on the power play. Teams have to be afraid to pull that crap on us [because] they’re fearful of our power play. But at the same time, what I like is that our guys continued to play the game. I’ll take exception with anybody that tries to call us soft because that’s not true. Where it’d be soft is if they tried to have a physical impact on us. And as far as I’m concerned, we raised our game. And that to me is tough[ness]. It’s a different type of tough.

I think there's a good point here. Does Ryan Suter beat the crap out of Nazem Kadri and negate the power play or do the Minnesota Wild wait and pick a time to challenge Kadri later in the game. I say take the power play. The best way to make the Leafs pay is on the power play in that situation. Also, the Toronto Maple Leafs are full of cement heads and the Wild only have Zenon Konopka and Clayton Stoner, there's not a lot of other fighters on the Wild. That's not their game. I don't think their a soft team either.

(Video) Mike Rupp will not be suspended by the NHL for taking run at Corey Potter

It was pretty obvious that the Edmonton Oilers were taking runs at Zach Parise during the third period of last night's game. I guess when you're a team that isn't going to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, you might as well try to hurt the other team's star players right. I guess your team can still have an effect on the outcome of the playoff field right?

Finally, after Corey Potter took yet another run at the Wild's Parise, Wild tough guy's Zenon Konopka and Mike Rupp had seen enough and went after the Oilers much traveled Corey Potter. Before Rupp could get at Potter, he was rescued by the linesman. According to Michael Russo, Mike Rupp will not face any additional supplemental discipline. This is a good decision by the NHL Department of Players Safety.

#NHL looked at that Mike Rupp incident last night where he tried to get at an #oilers player & linesman took brunt. No discipline. #mnwild
— Michael Russo (@Russostrib) April 27, 2013