Minnesota Wild goaltender Niklas Backstrom loves the St. Pete Times Forum. Backstrom and the Wild defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning Sunday night; the goaltender made saves en route to leading his team to the win, and improved to 3-0-1 in Tampa. For the Lightning, it was their third loss in a row, and it came in frustrating fashion; they had a huge advantage in shots but couldn't beat the Wild goaltender more then once, losing 4-1 in the process.
The Wild got on the board first with a fluke deflection goal that Lightning goaltender Dan Ellis would love to have back. With the Wild on the power play, Cal Clutterbuck took a shot that deflected off a Lightning defenseman, then off the end boards, and right back on Ellis, bouncing off of him and into the net to give the Wild a 1-0 lead. The Lightning evened the score back up when on a power-play goal of their own, this one off the stick of Marty St. Louis. For St. Louis, it was his 7th goal of the year, with assists from Brett Clarke and Steven Stamkos.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.