Wow! Lots of activity in just a week.
Ducks 3/22/09 We didn’t fare too well against the Ducks on sunday. (you can check out the pitiful GDT commentary for that game over at Odie’s if you want). There wasn’t much to say about it for sure. The 2 - 6 score doesn’t tell the whole story but I really think it says enough. Pruuu!!! notched his first goal as a Yote and of course the Captain came through with one. But the story of the night was the Ducks PP which pretty much had its way with us all night. The 4 minute hi stick on Uppy pretty much just sealed our doom by letting them get 2 in less than 30 seconds. So we opened the door for the Ducks to sneak back into post season contention… oops, our bad.
Oilers 3/26/09 But these new Coyotes are really gettin into their spoiler role and when EDM came to town (yeah the team that was tryin to sweep us), we came to life on home ice. Klee, Lombo and Hanzal bulled, bashed and scrabbled their way to beat Rollie the Goalie giving us the 3 - 2 win over the Oil. Hemsky and Kotalik are pretty much unstoppable when they get into gear and scored goals 43 seconds apart in the 3rd period. This was a really solid effort although we got a little rattled in the third, we never stopped pushing and that attack mentality is what really kept the Oil from completing the comeback. That never say die attitude bodes well for the future. It was great to see Klee get his first goal in the desert, Dawes fed him the perfect centering pass (we’ve seen a lot of those since the arrival of Team Transplant), it is taking our stay-at-home-defensemen a little bit to figure out that they are actually going to get to shoot occasionally!
Sharks 3/28/09 So, on Saturday we flew up to SJ to try to ruin the wounded Sharks day. (No team has beaten the Sharks in regulation more than us) if we could have kept our game together this would have made 3. But alas it was not to be. Specialty teams really made the difference again. But what really made the night especially fun was seeing Kurt ‘Sweets’ Sauer score a badass goal.
What made the night especially yuck was seeing Jody Shelly score. Tree really screwed the pooch on that outlet pass which totally killed the momentum from the Sauer goal. But we battled down to the wire and really made those fish sweat. We failed to kill the Lombo penalty in the 3rd and then failed to convert on the PP from the Cavanaugh penalty after. Another great thing about this game was hearing the commentators praise Scotty Upshall. Apparently Uppy is going to make TGOs line swapping look like genius everytime it includes inserting thegr8Scott into a line. According to Panger & Co, Uppy has an uncanny ability to bring energy and heart to any line he’s played on. If you didn’t love the Carcillo trade you still gotta give Upshall his props for what he’s brought to the Yotes in his short tenure.
Well we get to roust Dallas tomorrow at home. This should be a really good game as well. Another team we’ve matched up well against all season.
News and Notes:
Bettman reiterates… Glendale or die tryin!
Z’s shot blocking total is now 247! (he better stop blocking them with his hands tho, the one last night scared me to death) Brett Clark from COL is closest to him at 237. After that no one is close.
Smack Daddy is scheduled for surgery on April 1st.
Team Pierre wins more awards
See you guys tomorrow at the Job.
And as always… GO COYOTES!
