Four Swedes and Closer than it Needed to Be: Hawks 5, Wild 3 and Tuesday's Big Boy

The stars were aligning for a disappointing result; Duncan Keith being out for the evening with an undisclosed (ha ha ha!) illness caused Coach Q to trot out two defencemen that he's shown little trust in and a third d-man whom he should not trust, yet does.  On top of that, Antti Raanta got the call between the pipes vs. the jostling Wild and their affinity for "net presence".
Well, it wasn't the prettiest effort, with a terrific, dominant second period sandwiched by two inconsistent frames but, even so, the game didn't feel as close as a one-goal game.  That one of The Wild's goals was on a penalty shot reminds us that this was really more like a 4-2 game.  
Speaking of the penalty shot - these things happen; Hoss had to make an effort to foul Neiderreiter and Raanta's only fault on the subsequent PS was that he's too small.

As for the defence, The Hawks blue line had a rather Red-Wingy look about it with four Swedes at the points and, being completely optimistic here, it's possible that this game may prove important going forward.  Coach Q fooled around with his d-pairings for much of the evening before appearing to settle with Seabrook/Oduya, Hjalmarsson/Rozsival and Rundblad/Erixon...and it wasn't a disaster.  Despite spending a straight six+ minutes on the bench in the third period Rundblad hit a season-high for ice time, cracking 16 minutes and even saw some power play action.  Erixon barely cracked ten minutes but, as the newest new guy he saw only even  strength shifts, which is probably okay.  The kids did alright.

Yup, it's this guy again, on merit of a goal and two primary assists.  

                 Next, I shall try to bounce this off Versteeg's head toward yon twine.