What a crowd in Atlanta tonight - makes you wonder why Gary Bettman ever questioned moving an ice hockey team into Georgia!  Just take a look at this shot of the crowd, with ten minutes to go in the first period:

Crazy, huh?

And then, of course, there were the awesome crowd reactions. Just listen to the roar when Atlanta scored!  Obviously, it was much different when the Wild took the lead again, but then when the Thrashers were trying to get back into the game, the crowd was right there!

The NHL: It's not just for the alive and breathing any more!

(Ed. note / full disclosure: this article has also appeared in abridged form at SBNation Penguins blog PensBurgh and in full form at TNABACG.)

For the past three months, no update on the Minnesota Wild has made it into print, no opinion has passed a Wild commentator's lips, no thought has crossed a beat writer's mind without including at least a passing reference to a single issue: what's the status of the Marian Gaborik negotiations?

Though neither side has said so yet, the issue is easy to see: Gaborik, who will be an unrestricted free agent after this season, has the Wild over a barrel - and he knows it.

Gaborik is the only star in team history. He's the guy who wears the number that also adorns the backs of fans from age two to eighty-two at the Xcel Energy Center. He's the player that makes people nationwide take notice, he's the lone gunman filling up the statsheet, he's the only player on the Wild that outshines the team's coach - and he did it by being the only one to break out of Jacques Lemaire's defense-first system.

Keep in mind that this is a team that's sold out every home game in franchise history. The Wild have played seven NHL seasons, have won a grand total of two playoff series, got bounced in the Western quarterfinals last year by the lower-seeded Colorado Avalanche - and still had people camping out on Tuesday to be first in line to buy single-game tickets on Saturday. Wild merchandise lines the streets of St. Paul. The team televises virtually every game, home and away, the local ratings for which dwarf basketball and approach those of baseball.

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We've all had a night to digest the game, and we wake up this morning knowing that we now face six months without baseball.  It'd only be courteous of us to ask how you're doing.

Me, I'm still swinging wildly between "burning with rage" and "crushed with disappointment," but I suppose that'll fade soon.

How about you?

It's either this or kick the furniture. (I choose kicking the furniture.)