The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

I remember that, like, split second when everyone was like, “Man the Coyotes could end up being good this year.”

Those halcyon days are long gone. Today they sent Kyle Turris to the minors and then blew a two-goal, third-period lead and lost 4-3. To Vancouver.

Ah, a team that once had such great promise. Your Turrises, your Michaleks, your Muellers, your Tikhonovs. Good young core. It’s amounted to crap. The Coyotes are now sitting in 13th in the West after sitting in the middle of the playoff picture for a nice little while there. They’re 2-8-0 in their last 10.

Interestingly they’ve won three games in a row once this season, and apart from a six-game losing streak in November hadn’t lost more than two in a row all year until this most recent skid. I don’t know what gets into this team. They were reportedly awesome last night against Dallas.

Know who’s still great, though? Enver Lisin, baby. After he scored the game’s only goal last night, he netted a real pretty one by creating a neutral-zone turnover and walking the puck through a pair of defenders and beating Luongo clean with a nasty wrister. He also finished a plus-2 to lead all players. Kid can play.

But man, who would want to buy a team that plays like this? Note to Coyotes players: This is not how to keep yourself in a very nice part of the country with attractive women and nice, warm weather. Keep playing like this and your asses are getting shipped to Winnipeg or Hamilton or Nunavut so fast it’ll make Shane Doan get a nosebleed like that redhaired Australian girl from “Lost.”

(P.S. I chose the above picture because it looks like Willie Mitchell might be attempting to take a dump in his hockey pants.)

Elsewhere…

Ottawa 5, Philadelphia 2

Hey the Big Three got its act together. Three combined goals, two combined assists. Only like five or six more games like that and you’ll be right back at .500, guys! Cheers!

Florida 5, Carolina 0

The Panthers, if I’m not mistaken, have one of the worst offenses in hockey. Somehow they put four past Cam Ward on 13 shots. Great. Know what’s crazy now though? The Panthers are like three points out of FOURTH PLACE in the East. FOURTH. The Panthers! Who would have taken that bet in October?

Tampa Bay 6, Toronto 4

Poor Pension Plan Puppets. They have to watch this garbage every night. A four-goal first period for the friggin’ Bolts? How mortifying. Vesa Toskala also earned the distinction of having a worse night than ol’ .692 save-percentage Ward up in Carolina by giving up four on 12 shots! When Justin Pogge is starting to look like a legitimate option, your team is b-o-n-e-d.

Detroit 4, Minnesota 2

Pretty much, yeah.

Nashville 4, St. Louis 3 (SO)

David Backes, David Perron, Brad Winchester, Dan Hamhuis, Kevin Klein, Jason Arnott. Quickly now, name a more underwhelming six guys to score goals in a single NHL game this year. I can’t do it.

Calgary 2, Los Angeles 0

So much for those vaunted Kings, huh? Well, not actually. They should have kicked Calgary’s goddamn teeth in. But they didn’t and Mike Cammalleri scored a very nice goal against his former team and that makes me feel good. Also, much love for Miikka Kiprusoff, who was awesome and pretty has been for a few weeks now. Thanks, Miikka, for preventing my suicide for yet another night.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 2:37 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.