West Coast trip offers Wild stiff test

MENDOTA HEIGHTS -- The Wild is about to embark on what is arguably the toughest road trip in all of hockey: The three-game swing through California.
It's more than simply the long distance traveled, however. The 3 1/2 hour flight to Los Angeles is one of the longest trips the Wild makes in a season. But once there, the games are no picnic.
"Three good teams," said Wild forward Matt Cullen.

The Kings, Minnesota's opponent to open the trip on Tuesday, have won two Stanley Cups this decade, and their big, physical roster presents a challenge to every team in the League.
Anaheim, which follows on Friday, is another physical opponent that also brings a nice blend of speed and skill as well.
The Wild finishes the trip Sunday in San Jose against a Sharks club that boasts two of the best players of the past decade in Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski.
Combined with the distance and the two-hour time zone change, and it's difficult even under the best of circumstances.
"For the last several years, bar maybe one year with L.A. [last year], it's three great teams," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "You're going into a hornet's nest every night. And one of them is back-to-back, and when you're in L.A., usually you're in Anaheim the next night and they're just waiting for you."
Minnesota's trip does not feature any back-to-back games this time, and in fact, has two days between games in Los Angeles and Anaheim, a rare occurrence.
But even that isn't always a good thing.
"A lot of teams use that as a relaxing [trip], you get a couple days off in between," Boudreau said. "There's a lot of things going that make it a tough trip."
Boudreau has been on both sides of the trip. As coach of the Wild and in his first stop with Washington, be brought teams to the West Coast.
He also spent four-plus seasons behind the bench as coach of the Ducks, welcoming clubs to Southern California.
"We used to, in Anaheim, salivate when we'd look at other team's schedules and seeing where they were coming from, how many games they'd played when they were coming into our building," Boudreau said. "I know L.A. used to do the same thing. I know once you got going on the downslide there, it's not hard to lose all three in California."
Minnesota was outscored 13-5 in its past two road games, in St. Louis and in Winnipeg late last month, but believes it may have gotten back on track at home, when it allowed just three goals total in wins over Vegas and the Blues.
If it can carry over that success to this trip, it has the potential to be a season-defining week.
"It's an important part of the season for us," Cullen said. "None of us feel like we've played our best hockey, but we've won some games here as of late and put ourselves in a position to, where if we can get to our A-game, we can make up some ground here."

Kings coming in hot

With that in mind, the Wild will try and manage the current trip game-by-game.
The opener against the Kings marks L.A.'s first game on home ice following a four-game road trip that spanned the whole country. The Kings won all four games and will be riding high.
Los Angeles had a disappointing season last year that resulted in a coaching change, but the Kings have responded under new coach John Stevens. L.A. leads the Pacific Division, led by captain Anze Kopitar and forward Dustin Brown, who is having his best season in five years.
Brown's 11 goals in 28 games are three shy of the 14 he had in 80 games last year, and matched his totals from each of the two years prior, when he scored 11 in all 82 games.
"I gotta believe, and I don't have a clue, I'm just guessing, but Kopitar and Brown didn't get along with [former Kings coach Darryl] Sutter," Boudreau said. "Because they're having career years. There was a disconnect somewhere. Maybe they went home and it had nothing to do with Darryl, it was just them? But I coached Brown when he was young and he's playing the same way right now. When he's playing like that, that's a force.
And when Kopitar is playing like he is, he's more than a force, he's as good as there is in the League at that position. He's got a lot of pride and I do believe he signed the big [contract] last year and he probably didn't think he was doing what he should to earn it. But he's certainly earning every penny of it this year."