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‘You have to be ready to respond': Wild, Yeo address retaliation for Benn elbow on Cooke

Benn, Cooke

The Wild and Stars will meet tonight for the first time since Saturday’s terse affair, one that saw Dallas captain Jamie Benn go unpenalized for this elbow to the head of Minnesota’s Matt Cooke:

Benn also escaped supplemental discipline from the league and, on Monday, Wild head coach Mike Yeo addressed the situation at hand.

“Things happen in games and certainly you have to be ready to respond,” Yeo said, per the Pioneer Press. “We know that we’re going to have to play a hard, physical game regardless of who’s in the lineup.

“But we also have to makes sure that our sights are set on us and what we need to do to be successful.”

The Wild have been faced with a similar situation once already this season. Back in early October, the club had an opportunity to exact revenge on L.A. captain Dustin Brown, who sidelined Jason Pominville with an elbow to the face at the end of the last season. Brown was suspended for a pair of games, but Pominville missed five with a concussion.

Zenon Konopka, who is no longer with the Wild, was acutely aware of the situation -- “You get a chance to legally hit [Brown] clean, you’re going to throw that hit,” he said -- but nothing actually transpired during the game.

As such, it’ll be interesting to see what transpires tonight.