A Wild One at the Shark Tank

• First off, congratulations Sharkies! The Sharks clinched a playoff spot by sweeping the season series against the Wild 4-3 (SO).
• Curtis Brown got back on the ice for the first time since breaking his arm against Detroit in January. He notched a goal and an assist and will be a valuable presence as the regular season winds down. I like the way Yahoo Sports puts it:

  He will be key for the Sharks' late run, but not for yours.

• The game's first goal of the night was a pretty one.

  Brown led a three-on-one rush with Patrick Marleau and Jeremy Roenick and they created a picture-perfect tic-tac-toe play for the lead. Brown fed it up ice to Marleau, who dropped it back to Brown when he crossed the blue line. Then the puck moved back over to Marleau on the left and across to Roenick on the right side and he tapped it in.

  With his 507th goal, Roenick tied Jean Beliveau for 3rd for career goals.
• Scary collision: Kurtis Foster and Torrey Mitchell were racing for the puck for a touch icing call. Both of them crashed into the boards, with Foster getting the brunt of the damage. It wasn't a dirty play, but rather the result of the NHL's rule for touch icing (which Drew Remenda campaigned against while the medical team attended to Foster).

  Minnesota defenseman Kurtis Foster's broken left leg is the latest gruesome reminder of the dangers of touch-up icing in the fast-paced NHL.
  
  Foster will miss the rest of the season, including the playoffs, after crashing hard into the boards Wednesday night during a race to the puck with San Jose rookie Torrey Mitchell. Foster had surgery Thursday to repair a displaced fracture in his femur, and a stabilizing rod was put into his leg.

  I really hope he has a speedy and full recovery and can hit the ice again.
• The game went into shootout after the Wild tied 2-all on a 6-on-4 power play near the end of the 3rd period.

  After Pavelski and Burns scored on the first round of shots and Marleau and Gaborik were turned aside on their attempts, Roenick netted his shot through the glove side of Backstrom. Mikko Koivu took the final shot for Minnesota and Nabokov snatched the shot with his glove. After making the save, the winning goaltender threw the puck in the air and drop-kicked it in celebration