Twitter:coyotes1234
After riding goals by the powerful offensive duo of Halpern and Bissonnette to a 2-0 lead, the Coyotes were unable to hang on for the win last night against the Blues.
The game was an unfortunate bit of scheduling for the Coyotes, who ran into a St.Louis team that had just made a blockbuster trade to acquire goalie Ryan Miller and Steve Ott, and who also had gone a very long time without scoring a goal. ( 187:44 by the time they did score, and thus were very due).
Since the break, the Coyotes have fallen from 8th to 11th and taken a single point our of six available ones.
Now, a pessimist might be ready to panic right now. The Twitter certainly seemed upset after the game last night.
I, however, remain calm and I recommend you do as well. While the Coyotes may have had a rough start coming back from the break, there are some legitimate excuses for doing so, and they remain in the thick of the playoff race.
They came back from the Olympics and played well enough to win against the Jets, failing to win in OT only because of several acrobatic and lucky saves by Andrej Pavelec. They ended up losing in a shoot-out, and that's just a coin-flip they could have easily won.
The next night, they had to play a back-to-back against a rested and superior Colorado team. The schedule didn't give them much chance there and on the positive side, they were strong on the forecheck, and tenacious most of the night.
Then, as if they hadn't given up 3 points to nothing more than bad luck already this week, news comes down Friday night that their next opponent has just acquired Ryan Miller and Steve Ott in a huge trade.
Now, I don't have the stats to back this up, but I assume that when a team makes a big trade, that they are infused with energy and usually win the first game. Combine this with the fact the Blues are already one of the best teams in hockey and you have a recipe for a nearly impossible game.
But there was one other thing too: the blues had gone two straight games without scoring, and by the third period against the Coyotes, it was three full games, their last goal coming 34 seconds into the third period of a game on February 8th.
So, say what you will about the Coyote's so called third period collapse last night, but the Blues were due. If you go three games without a goal, you barely even have to try anymore; you're just due.
So, I know the pessimists will call me a homer and an apologist, but you have to be realistic. They could have played five times better this week and still ended up with the same result. The schedule just did them absolutely no favors.
There are, however, 21 games left and plenty of time to go on a run. The Coyotes have a decent roster and they just might do it. There may be five teams contending for the final spots, but none of them are any better than the Coyotes. It's a bunch of .500 teams competing for the right to get pummeled by the Blackhawks and Blues in the first round.
So it's no time to panic. There are still six weeks left and the season isn't over yet. The Coyotes can still make the playoffs.
Just have to figure out how to score first though.