Follow @james_tanner123 The Coyotes will face the Oilers tonight.
What do you even write about such a matchup on the eve of the Playoffs?
Maybe next year?
Look at the youth?
Vermette's scoring streak (too late!!)
OEL's imminent return to the lineup? That's a big plus, if for no other reason than giving people a reason to watch the game.
Interesting: the Coyotes - according to TSN - have won 23 of the last 28 games against the Oilers. That is pretty dominant, but also meaningless as about zero of those games have had anything other than draft lottery implications.
Mike Smith's return would be a nice story if it didn't come with (arguably) the best thing to happen to the Coyotes this year, Louis Domingue, riding the pine.
It's really easy to buy into the narrative that seems to be permeating, the one where the Coyotes were riding high and lost their shot at the Playoffs when Mike Smith went down with an injury for about 40 games.
It's complete crap, however.
Mike Smith used to be a pretty good NHL goalie. He isn't that anymore.
While their respective stats aren't that different - their team sucks defensively after all - Domingue's are slightly better. Also, Domingue posted a high-danger save % that is 4 % points higher than Smiths. This is said to be the stat that best predicts future goalie performance, and Domingue is significantly superior.
He's also younger, cheaper, more talented and likely to be part of the team's long-term future. Smith? They should dump him the first chance they get.
To me, it makes no sense to play the veteran at the expense of the rookie, especially when you consider that the games are meaningless and team is rebuilding.
But Smith will start. Go figure!
That being said, I am going to go ahead and assume that someone showed Tippett my article on Sunday because that night Grossmann was benched and it appears he won't be in tonight's lineup.
Grossmann's absence may be the good news, but the bad news is that the defense will still feature the pairing of Dahlbeck and Michalek.
Last time these two teams met, Smith posted a shut-out (an impressive one at that) and the Coyotes did that trick where they get dominated to a ridiculous degree and come out with what appears to be a lopsided victory.
Let's hope tonight's game doesn't feature any shut-outs. Let's hope the teams combine to score an NHL record of 54 goals - because otherwise, I don't know how I'm going to avoid bailing for Limitless about half way through the first.
Thanks for reading.