First the good news… the inaugural Coyotes Locker Room tail gate was a big success about 25 members and spouses and kidlets came out to lot J and much merriment and mass consumption ensued.
Oh man… I soooo did NOT want to waste one of our precious losses against these guys. But we are down to 2 losses and then its out for the count. Every game from here on out is game 7 of the finals. All the talk is, that every game has been playoff calibre… well the stakes just got raised a notch. With our enemies managing to cop 2 while we were skidding last night, we just got pushed into ultimate desperation situation. Code blue time. Our play off bid is now on life support and only heroic measures can save it.
Like night and day. Between the Nucks game and this Oil game, our performance was a complete 180. Everything we did right on Thursday, we did wrong on Saturday. I have questions. When do you pull the plug on giving large chunks of ice time to a very young player because of errors? Obviously we are short on D that can play to this level or else the number 6 slot would be filled with someone else by now (there seems to be very little faith in Jonesy (-8 w/ 2 pnts…ouch) at the moment or is this rookie trial by fire (Yandle -9 w/ 10 points) thing of even more importance than the playoff bid?). Did the team stay at the hotel the night before this game? If so maybe they need to switch to the Holiday Inn Express for better results. Does Edmonton have a voodoo doll of Breezy hidden amongst the team equipment?
OK we seriously blew chunks during this game. Despite throwing up 40 sogs, many of those could’ve been stopped by me, much less a world class goalie like Rollie. No traffic in front of the net, no crashers or bangers creating the havoc needed to pick up the many, many rebounds that were produced from those mostly perimeter 40 shots.
Our matchups were THE suck. I realize that the Oil have quite a few weapons in their arsenal but we have many answers too. Our answers just seemed to be the wrong ones at the wrong time. The Oil are very fast… and dare I say it? very slippery. But so are we. Rollie is a world class goalie… but so is Breezy. So on paper and in theory we should be able to whup these jokers right? But then again on paper and in theory we are supposed to be dead last… guess that means paper and theory means jack sqat.
So as WG said, we didn’t give 100% and we got stung. Nobody was willing to pay the heavy toll to pick up the garbage. Our main weapons were once again silent (by now Vbrat has to be grippin that stick like he’s tryin to squeeze lemons) and Rhino? *insert sound of crickets here*.
Breezy was havin a bad day (didn’t I warn them about goalie dependency?) not knockin the big guy but he just can’t seem to get a handle on the Oil (3 games 4gaa in each one)… I know he had the shut out and all the patter about startin the hot tender but Telly relieved Breezy in an Oil game and only let in 1 of 18… I know who I would have started but thats of course just my humble opinion.
The less said about Yentle the better… this kid is making my brain hurt, but the big hit was sweet, too bad that was pretty much it for the night. (all the Jovo haters have a new can to kick) at least Yandle has the inexperience card to play, JV had to weather the crap storm with only a thick hide to shelter him.
Zbyneck? how the heck do you manage to play 24+ minutes? Sheesh kiddo you sure do me proud… but if you don’t mind… SHOOT MORE OFTEN! 2 sogs? You’ve got a beautiful wrister that should see the light of day more often (How about a bit of PP time instead of all that EV for the kid Wayne? At least he won’t get burned as much as some folks) and Bally gotta give you some props too man, lately you have been on fire and managed to be the only freakin defenseman not in the minus this game.
We were all hits (34) and no play last night. Perimeter shots just will not get it done. Official stats say only 5 give aways… I beg to differ unless that was just the defense? The Oil gave away zip, nada, not even one. Does anyone want to talk about puck possession? I think I’ll just skip that one since we had about 39% off the dots *frickin Stoll and that stick tappin technique 16- 3* no face off wins means no puck possession and that means playin on your heels all night long. Then cretins like the Oil go home with your 2 points, 5 -2 final score.
Soooo, time to regroup, recharge, rethink and return to the ice against the Nucks on Monday. Hopefully the road warriors will come out to play. And then Tuesday we face the Oil again… they’ll be weilding brooms and trying for the sweep. Remember … every game is game 7 from here on out, its time to come big or you’ll be wearin checkered shorts and perfecting your swing in no time at all.
