OdinMercer Sports News
CoyotesHipCheck Press
Nov. 1, 2008

VS

Phoenix (4-4-0) (3-1-0 Home) (8 Points) Vs.Minnesota (6-2-1) (3-1-0 Away) (13 Points)

Start time 7:00 pm Arizona Time
Phoenix TV: None
Radio: AM 910

PHOENIX – The Minnesota Wild come to town tonight after losing their last two games to Dallas and Montreal. Those two losses were the first regulation losses of the year and the Coyotes will look to extend that losing streak to three.

The Coyotes are coming off of an excellent game against a banged up Pittsburgh squad in which the Yotes looked like the same team we saw at the beginning of the season rather than the one that had lost 4 of the last 5 games. Bryz was a monster in net and the team did an all around great job of limiting the scoring chances by the Penguins holding them to only two shots in the first period. Another bright spot was the penalty kill units. While they may have given up one power play goal (an excellent capitalization by Satan on a flukey bounce), the rest of the man-down situations were handled well and the guys hounded the players with the puck and never let them get set up. Even on the 5-3 they were able to keep defensive pressure on with Hanzel playing the puck away and able to draw a penalty practically negating the 5 on 3 time.(the 5-on-3 pk was absolutely siiick and the turning point of the game). The Dmen were on and poppin. Klee made his first appearance as a Yote seamlessly and added a stability to the third pairing that actually had DHL looking like an actual 6th defenseman.Z was simply stunning, harrying Staal and Malkin down low and absolutely making life miserable for the Pens PP and contributing to the point total w/ 2 assists on the night.

Two players that the Coyotes will need to look out for are Mikko Koivu and Antii Miettinen. Koivu is second in the league in assists with 12 and definitely makes things happen when he has the puck. And Miettinen leads the Wild with 6 goals this season. It looks like Backstrom will be in goal tonight, he has a .923 save percentage and is 6-1-1 on the year. Gabby is back and has 1 goal in his 2 games played…lets keep him quiet tonight. Alert broadcast… look out for former Yoties Nolan and Weller (it will be awesome to see Wellie and OhNo … as long as we don’t have to watch them do any goal celebrations). EDIT**** Minnesota will again play minus forwards Marian Gaborik and Owen Nolan because of injuries. Leading goal scorer Antti Miettinen also is nursing an injury but likely will play.

The Coyotes will be looking for their stars to have another set of big nights tonight. Bryz had a great night on Thursday and it would be good for his confidence if he could string together a couple of wins. Shane Doan has been playing great and hasn’t gotten off to his usual slow start. He has come out of the gate with 6 goals and 2 assists already in 8 games. (Doan has looked like an enraged bull out there, impossible to knock off a puck and nearly invinsible in the corners) Olli Jokinen hasn’t gotten all the goals, but he has gotten plenty of assists with 6. (Joker has been one of the most consistent point grabbers mirror opposite to Doan w/ 2 goals and 6 assists). The surprise to many fans has been the resurgence of the Rhino with 6 points in 6 games. Reinprecht has been great for the rookies, setting many of them up w/ their first NHL goals in a spectacular manner. (Porter’s goal against the Pens couldn’t have been any sweeter) Expect Jovo to be huntin his first goal w/ a vengeance (15 of the 21 Yoties have at least a point in these 8 games played) C’mon big guy! you are tied w/ McG in non points and have a worse +/- … get on it Jovocop.

There haven’t been any announcements regarding the lines yet, so as of now I’d expect that they would remain the same as Thursday’s game. Yandle could possibly be in for Hale on D, but we never know with the line juggling that Gretzky likes to do, what we’ll see by game time. I suppose we’ll have to ice McG depending on if the Wild wheel out the Boogeyman. No way we can afford to have THAT asshat runnin over our rookies.

Keys to this game:

Get the lead… keep the lead. Once the Wild get a lead they shut down tighter than a fat lady’s girdle. They can play like that to protect a lead, for freakin ever. Don’t let them have the opportunity to play their game. Keep them scrambling, do NOT let them get comfortable. Remember! Keep them scrambling, not comfortable.

Make Backstrum move. Big Nick covers a net like a trapdoor spider… one minute its clear and open and then BAM! he’s stopped your shot and you skate away thinkin, ‘how did that not go in?’ Pressing hard on the weaker D of Zidlicky (-4) and the soft offense line that contains Clutterbuck, Sheppard or Veillieux sould help keep Nick from getting much of a breather.

Play all 60 minutes like its the last time you’ll ever see NHL ice. That has been the key to every victory we’ve had. When we have the majority of loose puck recovery, when we consistently crush the opponent out of the play, when we close the gaps and crash the nets, there isn’t any way to stop us.

This GDT has been brought to you by a combination of the letters O and Z LOL

!!!! LETS GO COYOTES!!!!

It is sooo hard not to get waaaay high off this game.

We were simply magnificent. okay… maybe not magnificent but we played damn hard… all 60 minutes.

First period… kept them on their heels. No sogs for the birds for nearly 15 minutes! (the Pens have been having shooting issues despite having Sid and Geno leading the charge). We made sure they continued to have issues. Worried that poor Breezy would fall asleep back there. The Winnik/Malkin battles were epic… and our Beast continuously out worked their beast for the puck. The Pens looked disjointed, lethargic and were on their heels for much of this period. Fleury had his hands full but managed to keep us off the board, he looked cool and calm and was pretty much their best player for the whole 20 minutes.

Second period… the Pens found their feet and began to waddle across our neutral with a bit more authority. They caught up on sogs (not many were true chances, but they probably put more shots on net in this period than they have in total for this road trip). The Joker finally slipped past MAF (1 -0) but Satan worked his evil magic on a flukey high riccochet and answered our goal with one of his own. (1 -1 ) Captain Clutch roared back into action in the waning moments to snatch back the lead on a Rhino pass and we let the Pens roost at second intermission w/ that 2 – 1 weighing on their shoulders.

Third period… the birds returned with vengeance on the brain. They had fire and legs for the first half of this one but Breezy had other ideas. The big Russian repeatedly turned away all comers with authority. But the turning point of the game came when our DC fed Sykora a face full of board (hey Pete, nice performance btw, Carci deliberately went in from the side but Sykora somehow ended up face into the glass) and Sig got called for the dreaded delay of game, puck over glass. The Pens could have handed us our ass at this point, could have gotten their fans back into it with a timely marker here. (the Pen fans in the crowd did their best to get the boys fired up… to no avail) Our Pkers went into overdrive and pissed Satan off so badly he hooked Hanzal and then pulled off a 10 minute misconduct. The crowd visibly deflated and the Pens pretty much left the ice to the hard charging Boedker/Rhino/Porter phenomenon. Boedker snatched the puck from Goligosky and fed Rhino a beauty, the Rhino pretty much delivered Ports his first NHL goal tied in a red ribbon to make it 3 -1. IDK why they bothered to pull MAF in the last minutes, they had pretty much conceded the game. Even poor Malkin, who had taken the team on his shoulders and tried to put some guts back into them, couldn’t do anymore. Doaner put the chalupa goal in and we left the ice w/ a 4 – 1 victory, a chalupa for the fans and all 3 stars of the game.

Observations… this is not the 07 Pens… IDK who the hell these guys were. Staal was avoiding hits like most people avoid bill collectors. Malkin didn’t bother to hide his frustration and Sid the kid was nowhere to be found when the chips really went into the toidy.

Hockey is a game of opportunity some nights. Thankfully the boys recognised this and took full advantage of the Penguin team who have obviously lost their belief.

You have to absolutely adore Daniel Winnik. Has there been one shift in which the Beast has not been an epic factor? Fighting off 4 Pens while we completed our line change, creating open space every shift and just pure out workin and outmuscling and freakin out hustling everyone on the ice with him. Talk about leading by example.

NHL official recap

OdinMercer Summation for Pensburgh