Tonight the Coyotes will be playing the Islanders and looking for their first victory.
They will again be without Anti Raanta, Brandon Perlini and Jacob Chychrun.
Raanta is on the current five game road trip and hopes to eventually get into a game at some point.
Nothing like going 0-8 and then heading out on an extended road trip.
Remain positive. It's not as bad as it seems. etc. etc. etc.
I really have nothing new to add, as this has now been going on for like three weeks. One thing though, is that if the team ever gets in a situation where they are down by one goal with the goalie pulled, I think the coach should make sure that Zac Rinaldo isn't on the ice.
Other than that.........what do you say? An 0-8 start to the season, I guess technically 0-7-1 is brutal. The team is essentially eliminated from playoff contention already, barring an insane run of victories it's pretty much already impossible.
If the Coyotes were to go 40-22-12 they'd have 93 points and that would be one less than the worst team to make it last year.
That kind of record looks impossible, but it is only six games above .500.....still, last year's 8th seed, the Predators, were (if you count the OTLs as losses) just a .500 team and they had the best defense in the NHL. To expect the Coyotes to play six games over .500 the rest of the way seems like stretch, no matter how much you trust the process.
And again, with some luck, the team could be sitting at a much more reasonable 4-4 record. That's great - for evaluation purposes - but it doesn't do a damn thing about making the Playoffs.
There really is no way to soft-peddle this: the Coyotes are essentially eliminated from Playoff contention by the end of October. What they decide to do from here is anyone's guess.