There was a really interesting moment Thursday during our meeting with Wild coach Jacques Lemaire after Minnesota's morning skate. Asked about Lightning defenseman Filip Kuba, who played his first five seasons with the Wild, Lemaire told a story about how Kuba, who has five of his seven Tampa Bay goals on the power play, lost his place on Minnesota's first power-play unit because he regularly failed during scoring chances.

"I remember his shots hitting skates and sticks and I don't know if he does that again,'' Lemaire said. "Every time we had a scoring chance he either breaks a stick ... and after a while you give another guy a chance and that's how you lose your job. Then you go to a coach who doesn't know that and he gets his chance, so good for him.''

Couldn't tell if this was just Lemaire being matter-of-fact or if he was actually downgrading Kuba, who never had more than nine goals and four power-play goals for Minnesota.

Whatever, Kuba took the high road and said how much he enjoyed his time with the Wild and that his relationship with Lemaire was "good.''

As for losing power-play time because he blew scoring chances, Kuba said, "Things like that happen all the time. If that was the reason, I can't comment. He's the coach. ... I'm always trying to get the puck through, always trying to hit the net, always trying to get the puck past the defender. It's not like I wanted to hit somebody. It's not like I wanted to break a stick. It happens.''

What did it sound like to you?