Tonight the Coyotes play the second game of their Eastern road trip when they visit Tampa Bay to play Steve Stamkos and the Lightning.
The Lightning have 74 points and sit 7th in the East. The Coyotes remain three points back of the Stars for 8th in the West.
Tampa has lost four in a row and has not won a game since they beat the Stars and helped the Coyotes back on March 1 and Steven Stamkos is pointless since his return two games ago.
Mike Smith will start again for the Coyotes, Hanzal remains out with an injury and it finally looks like prized rookie Brandon Gormely will make his debut tonight, paired with fellow rookie Chris Summers, as it appears Derick Morris is again injured and won't go tonight. This means Stone moves up to play with Yandle and Michalek will be with OEL.
Also rotating into the lineup tonight is recent call up Andy Miele who will fill in for Hanzal and centre the second line with Vrbata and Erat.
These roster changes are courtesy of Coyotes reporter Sarah McLellen.
Should these indeed be the lines we will see tonight, it should make for an interesting game. I can't wait to see how Gormely looks and am almost as interested to see how Miele does in the NHL on a (quasi) scoring line.
---- From Around the NHL
There are GM meetings this week where, according to Bob Mackenzie, they will be discussing changes to prevent almost 15 % of games going to a shootout.
According to Bob, there is support for a rule change that will have OT go from 5 on 5 to 4 on 4 to 3 on 3 as time decreases.
Call me crazy, but I think this is just trying to defeat one gimmick with another worse one. I am 100% opposed to this stupid idea, and I don't buy the argument that it "makes the game more entertaining" since I find the game entertaining enough and am sick of the NHL trying to placate casual fans with things like less fighting and shootouts.
Here is a crazy idea: just make it ten minutes of overtime. You are likely to double the amount of games decided in OT and make the shootout more rare. I personally feel OT should be 5 on 5 too.
I don't know what else is on the docket for GMs, but I am hoping they will consider changing the terrible new icing rule and the wild card scheme of seeding for the playoffs which was a terrible idea to begin with since teams should just be seeded by how many points they end up with and has no reason to be so confusing. Also, hopefully being talked about will be the elimination of games worth different amounts of points, because it is ridiculous to do have this system. Just go to the every game is worth three points system that everyone knows will eventually happen.
Will it ruin records or make them incomparable? Probably, but as we celebrate Henrik Lundqvist's 300th win, no one seems to care that he never played in the era where there were ties and thus his record really isn't comparable to anyone who accomplished the same feat when ties where a thing.
Finally, anyone complaining about the finale of True Detective as "disappointing" because it lacked a surprise ending.......the nicest thing I can say here is that you aren't the target audience of the show and should maybe just stick to True Housewives!!!!
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