A Little Barker With No Bite

Tonight the Avalanche host the Wild at the Pepsi Center in Colorado. Game Time is at 8pm on FS North.

To me whats interesting about the game is the absence once again of Minnesota Wild defenseman Cam Barker. Barker was the third overall pick in the 2004 NHL Entry draft behind Alexander Ovechkin and Evegni Malkin, will be a healthy scratch for the second consecutive game.

With the Wild looking to make a charge at the playoffs this season they could really use the talents of an offensive minded defensemen who tallied 40 points in 68 games, and another nine in 17 playoff contests in his second full season with the Hawks. That's the guy the Wild thought they were getting when they traded puck moving defenseman Kim Johnsson and their top defensive prospect Nick Leddy, the former 16th overall pick in 2009 (Though the Wild were criticized for taking him that high) to Chicago. What they got was a guy who's played 45 games with the Wild, has a total of one goal, for11 total points, and tonight as they try to come up with the proverbial four point win against division foe Colorado, Cam Barker is a healthy scratch. Not to mention the Avalanche come in as the top scoring team in the NHL averaging nearly 4 goals per game.  Last time you remember the Wild played shinny and were blasted 7-4 after taking a lead into the second period. 

So tonight after mortgaging a promising young defenseman, in Leddy (who has as many goals as Barker and hes only played 6 NHL games in an earlier season call up) and a 10 year vet, Johnsson (Ended up injured after only eight games with Chicago), a year later the Wild are still looking for a young defensemen to help solidify their corps. Unfortunately the group who will play tonight against the high octane Avalanche offense, include three rookies named Stoner, Spurgeon and Scandella.  Meanwhile the scratch is a healthy 6-4, 24 year old former third overall pick that cant crack the line up of a team that sits 13th in the Western Conference.  By all accounts there wasn't a lot of reason to believe that Barker would work his way to becoming a better prospect, and that maybe why the Hawks jettisoned him after pinning their turn of the century rebirth on three talented kids known as the ABC line. (Tyler Arnason, Mark Bell, Kyle Calder). We'll we've all seen the True Hollywood stories of the rise and fall of many talented rock bands, well this group from Chicago lived it up like talented rock stars and true to form their story is being told with a Where are they now twist. For Barker, Chicago may have already been to the well with this type of player or players and were happy to let the Wild produce this story of hitting rock bottom.

 *Please forgive errors