The Coyotes win!!
They beat the Canucks 4-3......in a must lose game.
Don't theses guys understand the NHL rewards tanking?
Honestly, with Coyotes up 4-1, Dave Tippet should have pulled his goalie. It would have sent a terrible message, caused a huge controversy and been completely unethical, but it would have been the smart thing to do.
Of course, no one in the NHL is that ballsy, but openly attempting to lose would have been not only lots of fun, but beneficial too.
With OEL, they were at least able to beat the Avalanche. Without him, they should have been an easy win, even for the Canucks.
Add in Louis Domingue for Mike Smith, and give a ton of ice time to Burmistrov and it should have been an easy loss.
But the Coyotes don't do anything easy.
All is not lost for the Coyotes however. They have only one game left, and Vancouver has two. Only one point currently separates them.
However, Vancouver isn't the only obstacle: The Coyotes also have to avoid gaining any ground on the Devils.
The main reason it's so important to be second last, however, is because the new Las Vegas team has the third best odds to win the lottery. So, if the Coyotes pass Vancouver in the standings, they actually drop down two spots. (or technically, they'll have the same odds as Vegas, but lower than 3rd would get in a normal year. However you want to parse it out semantically, being 29th is best).
- Play Louis Domingue again.
- Let Doan play all 60 minutes
- Bet a new contract with Luke Schenn that he can't score a hatrick and then have him attempt to go end-to-end all night.
-Just be yourself. You lose most of the time anyways.
Anyways, it's been a long season, just one more game to go!!