It was kind of a strange game last night at the old Jobing.com arena.
The Coyotes were finally back home after an eastern road trip and the struggling Wild were in town attempting to avoid a terrible late season collapse that would see them miss the playoffs.
The Coyotes took an early 1-0 lead on a Michael Boedker power play goal and then tried seemed content to just sit back and hope that was enough, going a bizarre 24:00 minutes between shots at one point.
The bad part about going so long without a shot was that it was almost the entire third period. The Coyotes entered the third up 1-0, but the Wild scored twice to negate the lead. An empty netter was added in the final minute for a 3-1 victory.
Shane Doan disputed after the game that the Coyotes went 24:00 minutes without a shot. Even still, it was a pretty brutal third period from a team that only needed to play twenty minutes more of good hockey to move up to seventh place and virtually assure a postseason birth.
The loss was costly because not only did they lose a four-point swing game to the Wild, but the Stars also won their game and now move to within one point of Phoenix, with a game in hand.
Of note, Mike Ribiero played 15:00 in his return to the lineup after two games as a healthy scratch. He registered one shot and was a minus one. He did nothing to show that he should not immediately be returned to the press box once David Moss is ready to go, which, Tippett indicated would be Tuesday.
The Coyotes are off until Tuesday when the will face the Jets at home
Thanks for reading.