It was a banner night when the Wild defeated the Bruins 4-3, which now puts them at 7-0-1 all time for home openers. After a ten minute pre-game ceremony, the Minnesota Wild raised their first Northwest Division championship banner to the rafters of the Xcel Energy Center. But it was the Bruins that got off to a fast start by scoring first with a Phil Kessel wrist shot. You could tell that Minnesota was trying to work out the rust, their passes were not crisp, the timing was off and they seemed to spend lots of time in their defensive zone.

They settled down near the end of the first period when Eric Belanger scored his first goal of the night when he beat former Wild netminder Manny Fernandez with less then 90 seconds left to play. It was a power play goal and it brought new life to the club; rookie Colton Gillies tallied his first point as a professional with an assist on the play.

“Did you hear me from the ice? Oh man, I was definitely screaming,” Gillies said.

Coming into this season, the goal scoring was supposed to be Minnesota’s weakness since they lost Brian Rolston in free agency and cut ties with Mark Parrish and Pavol Demitra. After the way they played in the first period, one was to think they would have a hard time lighting the lamp any more this game.

But it was the newbies to the rescue in the second period that sent the Minnesota Wild on a scoring spree. There was the second power play goal from Marc-Andre Bergeron and the tip in from Antti Miettinen with an assist from Andrew Brunette and Mikko Koivu. Then near the end of the period, Owen Nolan did not want to be left out and his assist help set up the slap shot for Eric Belanger’s second goal of the game.

"Our team has more depth offensively; I think the scoring is going to be a lot more spread out through our lines. Even our defensemen were joining the attack a lot more," said second year Wild center Belanger.

The Boston Bruins made a push late in the third period with two goals by Marc Savard to put the game within reach at 4-3 with only 1:38 left in the game.

"You got to play three periods of hockey in this league," said Savard. "Ran out of time,” was all coach Claude Julien had to say.

Even when Minnesota wins, coach Lemaire isn’t happy.

“I didn’t like the game that much, I know we’ll play better than we did tonight. It’s always great to win, but you have to know that there’s certain things you’ll have to do in the future if you want to keep winning.” Lemaire said.

“One, play the style game we want, which is moving the puck quick and try to play in their zone more than our zone, not turning the puck over, which we did the whole first period.”

To contend for another Northwest Division title this year the Wild will need for people like Eric Belanger, Mikko Koivu, Pierre-Marc Bouchard and James Sheppard to score more then they did last year. If you can get Owen Nolan to chip in 15 goals this season, that will be icing on the cake and will make the Wild a tough team to beat.

Then there is the unknown, Marian Gaborik. Will he sign? Will he be traded? It doesn’t look like they will sign Gaborik to any deal. The Wild have offered him an offer worth up to $80 million for 10 years and he turned it down. It has been rumored that he might want to go and play in Los Angeles since he has some ties in that area. Right now there is no contract talks going on and at the moment no one is revealing their hand. So I guess that means it is a crap-shoot.

Quotes and Notes

"I don't think there's a better young defenseman in this league that has as much balance. He can check, he can score, he can skate, he can hit. He can do it all. He's just great." - GM Doug Risebrough on defender Brent Burns

Marian Gaborik didn't even have a point and no one seem to notice.

"It's going to be different guys chipping in every night." – C Eric Belanger

"You just try to fight through that beginning and try to feel the puck." – G Niklas Backstrom

The Wild raised its first Northwest Division championship banner to the Xcel Energy Center roof before Saturday's home opener.

"I think it's a steppingstone for us to get a chance at winning a cup, this is big. It shows as an organization we're moving forward and getting better every year. To win the division is big, but hopefully we can add to that and ultimately win the conference and get a chance to play for the Stanley Cup." – D Nick Schultz

Marek Zidlicky was scratched due to an ankle sprain; he was acquired to help boost the offense on the blue line.

The Houston Aeros won their first game of the season in OT beating defending champs Chicago Wolves by the score of 2-1.