Morning Links Ahoy!

First of all, sorry for my absence for the blog for a few days.  Unfortunately life gets in the way of hockey and, while I try to avoid that as much as possible, there are occasions where it just plain happens.  I’ve got another hectic week this week, BUT, on the upside…The Wild have won three straight and are going for four tonight! 

I’m hoping to have a gameday preview up for everyone this afternoon, but it all depends on my day job.  In the meantime, here are some links to keep you tided over. 

• I took a stab at the Power Rankings this week at Hockey Primetime.  A lot of the credit for the polish goes to our editor extraordinaire, JP Hoornstra.  That said, I’m a tad sad that my Swingers reference got removed.
• A little more shameless self-promotion, then I swear I’m done.  Here’s an article I posted on the Bleacher Report about the Wild’s struggles at keeping the puck out of their own net this season.
• We here at Wild Nation love us some Bourne’s Blog – in a completely non-creepy, platonic way, of course.  Check out his take on Alex Burrows, Conan’s late night struggles and so on and so forth.
• And what would I be if I didn’t also pimp my girl Ms. C’s blog (ok, that sounded vaguely wrong…Sorry Ms. C!).  Check out her blog on her drop-in game on Tuesday.
• Moving away from the Wild/Aeros/Fun category for a moment, here’s an informative little piece by Adrian Dater on the Versus website.  I say informative because I honestly didn’t know that Jonathan Quick was a rookie.  What?  He’s not?  Well, I guess there’s always next year then.
• The incomparable Elliotte Friedman takes a look at two controversies in the NHL starting to boil over.  As a hockey fan, my take on the Burrows/Auger thing is that, if it’s true, it’s a disservice to the game.  As a Wild fan, though, my take on the whole thing is: “Good.  The little @#!$ had it coming to him.”
• The only thing that this look at American Olympic selectee David Backes is missing is the Bud Light “Real American Heros” guy singing in the background.
• Say all you want about high scoring games, but there isn’t much that makes a hockey fan just stop and say “Wow!” like a combined 96-save, 1-0 shootout victory.  Just check out the highlights, if you don’t believe me.
• WHA??!?  It appears that hockey blog luminary James Mirtle is moving on to bigger and better things.  Ok.  Maybe not bigger and better, but it looks like he’ll now be blogging and writing at the Globe and Mail.
• Mr. Plank has a good look at the Sharks’ secondary scoring at Fear the Fin, including a name for their top line.  HTML.  Slightly geeky, but cool nonetheless.
• My how I love Spector.  Especially with blog titles like “Shooting Down Dumb Trade Rumors – January 2010.”  Yes.  We like that very much.
• And finally, to end on a Wild note, Brian Stensaas’s article about a newly confident Guillaume Latendresse.  Seriously folks.  Go out and buy a Star Trib at least once this week.  75 cents to make sure that solid hockey writers like Stencils and Russo get to stick around in Minnesota.

That’s all from me for now.  Schedule permitting, I’m hoping to have my analysis of some top defensemen free agents up sometime this week.  Also, you’ve still got time to send in your questions for the mailbag, which will be answered early next week. 

Until then, enjoy the link feast!