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Video: Yeo asked if Cooke told to ‘target’ Avs, does not like question

Yeo

Skip ahead to around the 7:30 mark, when it all starts with Minnesota Wild coach Mike Yeo being asked if his skilled players need to keep their heads up after Matt Cooke injured Colorado defenseman Tyson Barrie last night.

“Well, this is playoffs,” Yeo responded. "[The Avalanche have] said it themselves that they’re trying to target certain guys. Likewise, we’re trying to target certain guys as far as playing physical. But nobody wants to see anybody get hurt. That’s not their intention to hurt us; it’s not our intention to hurt them. But this is a fast, physical game.”

To which a reporter -- a Denver Post columnist, according to the StarTribune’s Mike Russo -- countered with, “So...you wanted Cooke to target specific guys?”

To which Yeo, though clearly annoyed with the way his words were spun, smiled and said, “If you think that I’m saying, ‘Go take him out,’ no, you’re wrong. There’s a lot more respect in this game than that.”

Anyway, Russo never revealed the identity of the Denver Post columnist, but we’d say there’s a good chance it was the Denver Post columnist who wrote this:

I feel sorry for Matt Cooke. In a year or two, max, he’ll be out of the league. He’ll have no more money coming in, and he’ll have to sit and really look at what his career was all about. He’ll realize he had no respect of anybody in the game, and that will include his teammates — which will hurt the most. He’ll be filled with an old age of regret, a career of selling his hockey soul to the hockey devil. He’ll realize it wasn’t worth it, but by then it’ll be too late.

Related: On Matt Cooke and whether he’s a ‘repeat offender’