The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

How awesome was that, right? Freakin’ Coyotes come back from to beat Detroit in the first home game in Phoenix, err, Glendale since I want to say 1642. Unreal. Keith Yandle was better than Nicklas Lidstrom. Wojtek Wolski was better than Henrik Zetterberg. Derek Morris was better than Brian Rafalski. And Ilya Bryzgalov was far better than Jimmy Howard.

Why, it’s almost like Phoenix was the fourth-best team in the league over 82 games this season!

Look, I think it’s great that the Coyotes won after a trying first period and some scumbag from Detroit threw an octopus on the ice (for which I hope he was dragged from the arena and beaten), but let’s be realistic here.

Yes, Phoenix benefited heavily from the shootout this season, but even without it, they were best in the league in 5-on-5 goals allowed and were 11th in 5-on-5 goals for. Basically they’re really good at outscoring teams when penalties aren’t especially lopsided one way or the other. They got in front of 15 Detroit shots and only had eight blocked at the other end of the rink, and in the third period, they outshot the Red Wings 20-10. These are things good teams do, right?

Just because no one in Arizona cared about the team a month ago doesn’t mean they’re suddenly some kinda little team that could just because the Red Wings have won a bunch of Stanley Cups in the last 15 years. They were a better team than Detroit from October to last Sunday (in part because every player on Detroit is 46 and/or injured all the time), so let’s not act as though this is some kind of upset.

I saw people saying that every underdog won tonight. Maybe I need to go back to first grade math, because I coulda sworn 107 points was more than 103.

They’re supposed to be here, and they’re supposed to win.

…Because Bettman owns the team and this is a conspiracy.

Elsewhere…

Ottawa 5, Pittsburgh 4

Player of the night league-wide? Jarkko Ruutu. I can’t believe it either. He Ruutu’d the crap outta Evgeni Malkin all night, scored the game-winner, etc. etc. Also the goaltending in this game was top-notch. Nine combined goals on 47 shots, an .809 save percentage!

Philadelphia 2, New Jersey 1

Philly won this game. With two goals. On 14 shots. Their busiest period, shots-wise, was the second. They had eight. In the third period, New Jersey outshot them 9-2. How was this a playoff game?

Colorado 2, San Jose 1

You’re not gonna believe this but San Jose blew this one. Chris Stewart scored the game-winner with 50 seconds left in regulation. Oh Sharks, never ever change.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 2:25 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.