It’s Martin Havlat Gone “Wild”

Tonight’s Game
Chicago Blackhawks (0-0-1) at Minnesota Wild (1-1-0)
Preseason — 5:00 p.m. CST, no local TV

As strange as it will be tonight for Blackhawks fans to see Martin Havlat in a Minnesota Wild sweater, let’s remember we really only saw him wearing the indian head for one full baseball season.

Over three injury-plagued years in Chicago, Havlat played in only 162 regular-season games. And after a career-high 77 points, it was the same old story with Havlat being sidelined for nearly all of the Western Conference Finals against Detroit after getting Kronwalled.

After a widely publicized exit from Chicago, Havlat will make his Wild debut against his former team and is expected to see plenty of action. I’ve been monitoring his Twitter account (@martinhavlat) today to see if Havlat planned on taking anymore shots at the ‘Hawks organization, but all he’s talking about are the Wild players nicknames — including, “Everyone here calls me Havli…..” Sweet.

Cristobal Huet played the entire game Saturday against Washington, but it’s expected Corey Crawford and Antti Neimi will split time tonight in net.

Notes from last night’s 3-2 OT loss to the Washington Capitals:

• Patrick Sharp scored the Blackhawks first goal of the season, putting back a rebound in the first period off a shot from the right wing by Dustin Byfuglien.
• Jack Skille, who is fighting for one of the few remaining roster spots, scored on an impressive top-shelf wrister after skating the puck through some traffic.
• Kris Versteeg left after the first period with an upper-body injury that isn’t serious.
• Alexander Ovechkin and most of the Capitals regulars remained in Washington.
• The announced crowd of 19,734 at the United Center was a Blackhawks preseason record

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