[moore4807]

A bright sunny Florida day has dawned as Bonehead Moore pulls into the BB & T Center parking lot and enters the building. Inside there is quiet, only a few staff members gathering supplies and foodstuffs for tonight's game and electric floor jacks are rumbling by with their wares.

Several "Good morning Coach" salutations are offered to Bonehead by those walking or riding by he realizes he has no idea who all these people that make the game tonight possible are, but knows that the workers here deserve more recognition than he is receiving right now. He vows to make some time soon to get to know some of the workers...

Other than a verbal warning to the Defensive coaches for leaving the War Room a mess last night, He spells out the game plan they agreed on... Minnesota is a line-rolling team with some good defensive players and a two way system. He warns the coaches to stay on the offensive because the Wild are hard to beat once they are ahead, and have proven adept at getting points off OT and shootouts.

The day finally winds down and the puck is ready to be dropped. The Wild and Panthers are pretty even through the first period but a late flurry of activity by the Wild sees them pick up an ES goal and the Panthers enter the locker room down in shots 12 - 8, and down in the score 1 - 0.

The coaches are doing an excellent job keeping our lines attacking and moving in the offensive zone in the second period. Quickly we surge ahead in SOG but still cannot figure out the Wild's G Gustafsson who is making some incredible saves. The score remains 1 - 0, but the shots are now 21 - 18 in favor of the Panthers.

The third period starts badly for the Panthers as ES goals by LW Zach Parise (8.5c/8.5c) and C Mikael Granlund (7.5a/8.0a) have the home team looking at the wrong end of a 3 - 0 score. Minnesota adapts to our style and quickly the SOG are evened out. A late PP goal by RW Kris Versteeg breaks Gustafsson's shutout bid, but the Panthers can't score again and the final buzzer sounds on a 3 - 1 loss.

Surprisingly G Gustafsson (6.0c/7.0c) is only the Third Star of the game, Bonehead thinks the press core wasn't watching the same game as him tonight. The coaching staff will be spending a late night in the "War Room" trying to figure this one out tonight.