Perhaps you'll be willing to forgive the over indulgence in the use of exclamation points in the title if I tell you I deleted about half of them? No? I don't blame you. Exclamation points are the worst; at least according to the reviews of my last book "Fun with Semi;Colons!"
They are, however, cathartic.
For example, see these other alternate titles:
Coyotes Do Best Maple Leaf Impression: Lose Third Straight at Crucial Time!!!!!!!
Coyotes Shut Out in Crucial Game; Maloney:I Can't Believe Erat Wasn't the Answer!!!!!!!!
There was one that was just going to be this: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But I wasn't sure anyone would get that they were supposed to be sarcastic exclamation points!
You know, it wouldn't be so hard to take last night's game if the Coyotes hadn't teased all year about what a good team they could be. The team has no scoring to speak of, not a single first line player, Antoine Vermette, actually, as the team's top center, the captain out half the year with a mysterious sickness, management that refuses at the deadline to add the scorer the team is desperate for, and then, just when things are looking great, their All-star goalie goes down.....but the team doesn't fold, they respond, as they have all year by playing their asses off in front of untested back-up (and noted fan of the run-on sentence) Thomas Greiss, who also plays great.
Then, with everything culminating in the second night of a tough back-to-back schedule, they play possibly the worst game of their season. Was that Randy Carlyle I saw there behind the bench?
Like I said:expletive deleted!!!!!
Still, this team has overcome adversity all year (well, sports team, millionaire adversity, not real world my-dad-left-I'm-hungry-and-my-neighborhood-is-scary adversity) and there is still a fair to decent chance they make the playoffs.
Neither Dallas or Minnesota played last night, and so all that was really lost was a game in hand. Unfortunately, Dallas gets to play the Hurricanes tonight and the Wild play Chicago, two teams with nothing left to play for. (For opposite reasons, obviously).
The Coyotes play Edmonton Friday, and Mike Smith will hopefully be back soon, so there is good news. Now if only Mike Smith could score a few more goals, I might feel a little more positive.
Of course, there are a million positives/things to like about this team, but sometimes, after a tough loss, they're tough to see.
Thanks for reading. Tweet me: Coyotes1234