Tweet, tweet, y'all! A special welcome to all you masters of the 140-character or less thoughts on hockey, the Wild and life in general. It's definitely a special night here at live in-game commentary due to the @mnwild #wildtweetup. But first, I want to wish a Happy Police Day to all of the Wild fans in the beautiful country of Thailand. Personally, I don't think we do enough to honor the Po-Po's who protect and serve us, so I have to say the people of Thailand got it right. If you see a police officer tonight, I urge you to shake their hand and thank them for all they do, rather than scream "Five-Oh!" and start sprinting the other way like you normally do. Just for today, at least.

Tonight, your Minnesota Wild are welcoming their favorite guests to Xcel Energy Center - the Edmonton Geekwads, or Oilers as they are sometimes called. I'll be taking in the 15th straight beating of the Oil from my perch in the Al Shaver Press Box high atop the frozen water. Better yet, I'm letting our @mnwild Twitter followers do most of the work tonight. Once the game starts, I'll be picking the best tweets with the hashtag #wildtweetup to appear right here on the commentary. If your tweet is selected and you're 18 years old, you and a guest are going to be sitting in a suite on Saturday night watching the Wild beat up on the Red Wings while you chow on some free food. And you thought all those nights of reading in-game commentaries on weekend nights would never pay off. I told you!

For those of you who aren't into the whole Twitter thing, I'll apologize in advance. Get ready to see some things that might not make a ton of sense to you. Everything will be back to normal on Saturday night. Like Elton John, I promise you that.

Now then, about the impending whooping the Wild are going to put on the Oilers. Niklas Backstrom, who is 14-0-0 at Xcel Energy Center against Edmonton, will get the start. Rumor is that he's playing tonight's game blindfolded to give himself more of a challenge against these guys. Again, these are just rumors so don't go tweeting crap about me if I'm wrong.

The Wild will once again be without the services of Mike Lundin who is still dealing with a back issue. Nick Johnson, Matt Kassian and Justin Falk will be the healthy scratches. Also, the future considerations acquired for Eric Nystrom will be out of the lineup.

If fashion is what you're into, you'll be happy to know the Wild will sport the home reds for this one. The Oilers are going with the road whites trimmed in blue and copper with the oil drop on the chest.

Dan "Common Man" Cole, the biggest Wild fan out there, gets us going with the Let's Play Hockey declaration and we're off. Let's see those tweets! My comments will be in plain text, and the tweets will be in italics.

Period 1

20:00 - We've got a winner right off the bat: Got a speeding ticket hurrying home to watch the Wild game #wildtweetup: @kutinacory

17:26 - First huge save of the night comes from Backstrom, who robs former Wisconsin Badger, Tom Gilbert.

12:55 - Nick Schultz has more salad coming out of the back of his helmet than the salad bar at Old Country Buffet! @mnwild #wildtweetup: @PapaJ97

8:20 - MIN 0 - EDM 1 - Really? Ryan Smyth is back in Edmonton and doing this for them again? He parks that ginormous body of his in front of Backstrom and puts a perfect deflection on a slapper from good ol' Eric Belanger. If I never saw Smyth and his rat tail again, I wouldn't be upset.

6:44 - The Wild's top power play unit gets right to work with Marek Zidlicky perfectly placing a low slapper into the slot where Dany Heatley redirects it. Nikolai Khabibulin comes up with a huge save.

3:52 - Zidlicky unleashes another howitzer on goal. Khabibulin makes that save, and then robs Colton Gillies on the rebound.The Smyth goal seems to have woken the Wild up.

2:11 - Staubitz already ready to drop the gloves after his supsension but no one wants a piece. Staubitz and peckam in the box #wildtweetup: @chasesannan

0:00 - The horn blows to end the first 20. Thus far, we've got five winners, but there could be more before the second period starts.

Period 2

20:00 - @mnwild We need the Heater-Vu-Gooch line to show how good they are. #wildtweetup: @MidStateComp

20:00 - We have 6 guys packed into an #iowastate dorm room circled around the computer listening to the game #wildtweetup (@sand_berg )

19:13 - I'd just like to say that there have been plenty of tweets that have made me laugh out loud (or lol in Twitter terms), but let's keep in mind, we have to keep it clean for the kids.

17:35 - In the words of the great Herb Brooks "Hit the net Rizzo!!!!" More shots this period Wild. #wildtweetup: @Jesse_Wiggins

14:24 - Zidlicky has done his fair share of playmaking tonight. He springs Devin Setoguchi on a breakaway with a pass through the neutral zone. Seto gets ahead of everybody and tries to snap one on the glove side, but Khabibulin gets his lobster mitt up there for the stop.

12:49 - You can't win twice Jesse_Wiggins, but you can sure keep the tweets coming: Can we get the crowd to start cheering "GOOOOOCH!" for setoguchi. (P.S. Do not urban dictionary that) #wildtweetup: @Jesse_Wiggins

11:42 - MIN 1 - EDM 1 - All right Tweeters, show me what you got! Matty Cullen gets this thing knotted up as the Oilers decide to cover Clayton Stoner on the two-on-one. He roofs it past Khabibulin. Now I want to know what you have to say.

11:42 - Matt Cullen made Khabibulin look worse than Mike Greenlay did in his 2 games in the NHL. Great goal!! #wildtweetup: @1337sauce

11:42 - Take that Canada! #wildtweetup: @Msfforever

9:48 - Hиколай Иванович Хабибулин. Oh, you don't know Russian? Hint: He's been the impact player of the game so far. #wildtweetup: @heavy Ummm...Sergei Krivokrasov?

5:40 - I'm not sure what Belanger enjoyed less. Having Clutterbuck dump him to the ice with a huge check, or filling his car completely with packing peanuts as he did three years ago.

4:46 - Same goes for you @heavy. You can't win twice, but you're pretty funny. In a parallel world, Cullen passed to Stoner on that 3 on 1 and Stoner ripped one 6 feet wide. #wildtweetup #Schrödinger: @heavy

2:39 - A "Becoming Wild" reference? Solid! The Oilers top line is flying like rag dolls when they get hit, need to develop their "man bodies" #wildtweetup: @Mackenzie_MSP

1:23 - The Oilers are tackling better than the Vikings #wildtweetup: @ck17173

0:00 - The Tweeters are going to get some more time. We're headed to OT with another point in hand, but one more on the line.

Overtime

5:00 - @mnwild headed to OT after a little wrasslin' at the horn. Wild 1, Edm 1. GO WILD!! P.S. and do it before the shootout…#wildtweetup: @Balou8900

2:17 - How is this not a penalty shot? Marco Scandella gets hooked from behind by Taylor Hall when he's got at least two strides on him. Scandella puts a shot off the post, but the ref calls a minor, and not a penalty shot. Mike Yeo does not look pleased.

0:16.2 - The Wild power play can't find the net, and we may be headed to a shootout. Sorry @Balou8900.

0:00 - We are. Backstrom gets his redemption right now. And that's what Mike Yeo is telling him right now.

Shootout

Cullen will lead it off in the breakaway contest since he's got the hot hand. Au-to-MATIC! He pumps one in for the early lead.

Jordan Eberle has the next go. He flips a backhand in off the water bottle.

Bouchard has had Khabibulin's number with the spin move, but he tries a shot and it's gloved.

Hey now! Backy denies Anton Lander and we head to round three all square.

Koivu's not in his usual leadoff spot, and he tries to go with a shot to the blocker side, but Bulin gets the waffle mitt up for a save.

Taylor Hall tries to reach around Backstrom to put one in, but nothing doing there.

Here's Setoguchi to put the Wild on top. No problem! He fakes a stop and then roofs one.

Take that Backstrom doubters! He stops Shawn Horcoff. The Wild get the win. Let's see a few more tweets to wrap this one up!

Cold War is Won! Wild Break Down the Bulin Wall!...Friday's Headline. #wildtweetup: @jclarson02