Minnesota-Montreal: A Game Review In Pictures & Video

Author's note: First Round Bust normally does not do game recaps because there are 15 other Wild blogs and the two Twin Cities newspapers which that do the same - quite honestly there are better ways to spend our time - but on rare occasions we like to describe the game. This is one of those games.

What a ride! The Minnesota Wild gave a valiant effort in coming back on the road against the Montreal Canadiens but ultimately fell 5-4 in a shootout. Matt Kassian scored two goals for the Wild, the first two of the enforcer's career, while Josh Harding had 19 saves in relief of injured goalie Niklas Backstrom.

Backstrom's status is unknown but General Manager Chuck Fletcher told the CBC that it "wasn't short term." He had to be helped the ice less than three minutes into the game.

More on Minnesota's 5-4 loss to Montreal after the jump...

The game got off to somewhat of a fighting start when Ryan White and Stephane Veilleux "fought" ten seconds into the game.



It wasn't a great fight, in fact it looked more like two gingers hugging, but it set the tone for Minnesota early. That tone was penalties. Jed Ortmeyer took a double minor for high sticking, Justin Falk took a holding penalty after being made a pylon and the Habs scored two goals in 4:38.

Wild fans at this point at this point were like Tom Gilbert.

Photo Bruce Bennett/Getty

Then more head-shaking moments happened before Matt Kassian scored to make it 2-1. I couldn't give the goal justice describing it but it would make for a good romantic comedy. After that Veilleux slashed Habs goalie Carey Price and White finally learned how to fight.



And the Minnesota fan reaction to it were something like this:

(Photo Kenne Turner)

And Ryan White was probably thinking something of a future discussion with this guy after getting 2 for instigating, 5 minute major for fighting and a 10 minute misconduct.

(Photo Askmen.com)

The second period saw Max Pacioretty score his 26th goal of the season and this attempted hit by Alexei Emelin.



David Desharnais made it 4-1 Canadiens 8:50 into the third. At this point Montreal fans were like this:

And the Wild were doing their best impression of a Calgary fan.

(Photo by Felix Levesque)

Then Matt Kassian scored for the second time with less than 4 minutes left, something so shocking that fans took a page from Delmon Young.

(Photo from Minnesota Sports Spike)

It was followed by Dany Heatley scoring his 20th goal with under two minutes left. The comeback was complete when Devin Setoguchi scored after a hook/dive by a Canadien with nine seconds left. The crowd at Bell Centre reacted like this:



And Wild fans were reacting like this:

Or maybe it was like this:

(.gif from CJ Fogler)

Everyone was happy...well except for Dan and others who have Mediacom because FSN+ went out at exactly 9. He went all Scanners on us.



Overtime was uneventful and so was the shootout for the most part. The last shooter was Setoguchi and with the Wild needing a goal to win he ended up doing his best Matt Cullen/Mikael Granlund impression:



Setoguchi's shootout attempt was so bad that it looked like it could have been out of Benny Hill. Wait we have that video? We have that video.



And Montreal fans went home happy while Minnesota fans had a moral win in the comeback. Anyways, that's the end of this season's game recap between the Montreal Canadiens and the Minnesota Wild.

(Youtube credits to Hockeyfights.com, Hockey Video HD, Mokyboy11, RandomFrosh and First Round Bust's own Tommy for the Yakety Sax Setoguchi)