Moving On

Photo: Brace Hemmelgarn/USA Today

Last night, we witnessed one of the worst individual displays of hockey from Leafs forward Nazem Kadri (this is where Leaf fans quit reading).

In one hockey game, Kadri managed to distribute a shot to the head of Niklas Backstrom (which caused the Wild goalie to leave the game) and handed out another high blow to Mikael Granlund, which earned him a match penalty.


Many of us, including yours truly, took to the internet to express our anger towards Kadri and his rather pathetic antics last night. Twitter became a pretty volatile  place for Wild and Leafs fans.

Meanwhile, the Wild and Leafs continued on playing hockey and the Wild were able to shake off two and two-thirds periods of snakebite and came back and won in a shootout. It marked the 10th game in the past 11 where the team has managed to take at least one point. The Wild have also won four out of their last five, keeping pace in an extremely tough Central Division, so far.

But as we mainly reflect on last night's match for what Nazem Kadri did, and not the out come of the game, my advice to the State of Hockey is this: put this game in the rear view mirror.

Its not easy, because we all want to sit there and hope the next tweet says "Kadri suspended 10 games". It might. Kadri will have his hearing with the NHL today. Let that play out and let the league give him what he so richly deserves.

So today, lets talk among ourselves about how the Wild can improve upon a rather dismal performance last night against Toronto. Lets talk about how Mikko Koivu put on a rather ugly display of passing, the power play's lack of any positive, Jared Spurgeon playing a stellar game, Ryan Suter playing 36 minutes, or Josh Harding picking up the win in relief.

Anything goes today, as long as it is not Nazem Kadri. Let the league deal with him. Brendan Shanahan loves to hand out discipline, and Kadri is sure to be getting some type of discipline after last night.

So lets sit back, and bicker about the Wild power play or something. Its just not worth the time to talk about this.


Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell