The instant reactions you get from Twitter are hilarious. They are hilarious because almost every other kind of media that requires you to read is well thought out and edited to at least some degree.
If you actually think about it, it’s not that big a deal to lose to the Buffalo Sabres. But the point here is you don’t think about it: you just grab your phone out of your pocket and type the worst case scenario in the most sarcastic tones possible.
SampleTweet: Nice effort, JERKZ! Way to lose to the LAST PLACE TEAM. Thanks for ruining MY MOM’S BIRTHDAY.
It’s as if you were entitled to a win, and any other outcome was unthinkable.
But consider this: Buffalo has at least 20 or so players on their team good enough to make the NHL. Buffalo is a team in the NHL. Also, they have a world class goalie, are made up of some very high quality young players and the actual difference in the skill level of NHL teams is marginal.
An example of this parity: the Buffalo Sabres are last in the NHL with 1.83 goals per game. This is a bad number, but if they could score just one more goal per game, they would be in the top ten. That means that less than one goal per game separates the tenth best and the absolute worst scoring team in hockey, which means the difference between success and failure, is much smaller than people give it credit for when they act like it’s a travesty to lose to the Buffalo Sabres. (Stats from Sportingcharts.com)
Now, obviously if the Coyotes are a team that wants to make the playoffs, they clearly want to win all their games, especially the ones against teams below them in the standings. It seems a natural enough idea, but it ignores randomness, which is what makes watching sports interesting in the first place – you are bound to lose against teams you should beat and beat teams that should beat you, at least some of the time. This is almost a mathematical certainty and it’s also the reason why the bookie always wins in the long run, since no matter how many times you bet on the favorite, they are going to eventually lose.
Besides the fact that they are just bound to sometimes lose to bad teams, the problem with being more upset about a loss to Buffalo than you would be to, say Anaheim, is that it ignores the fact that the Coyotes are a .500 team at best. While a crazy win-steak is always a possibility, realistically they would be ecstatic to be a seventh seed with this roster (which sorely lacks a top line forward), this year. That means that the Coyotes are probably closer to a team like Buffalo than they are to a team like Chicago. And it means that the Coyotes aren’t the massive favorite over Buffalo that a lot of people going into this game probably thought.
All this is to just say that the utter despair and over-reactions that happen whenever someone’s favorite team loses to a supposedly inferior opponent are not at all well thought out. A loss only matters if it eliminates you from contention or if you played a bad game. Neither was the case tonight.
It’s just a loss and by the time the season is over, it’s just going to be one of approximately forty-one. The result has to be immaterial. (Unless you are the type of guy who likes to call sports talk radio and yell a lot, then by all means, feel free to just completely meltdown over this unforgivable loss).
The real question is: did the team play well?
I would say they did. They outshot the Sabres, which isn’t always the best indicator, but I think in this case the Coyotes also had the most scoring chances. Greiss didn’t let in any horrible goals. Ryan Miller was excellent. The team gave a solid effort and at the end, just came up a goal short. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it’s bound to happen. The roster contains one player – Boedker – who resembles anything close to a game-breaking offensive threat and on most nights, at least thus far, he just resembles one.
Overall, I guess it’s too bad the Coyotes weren’t able to move closer to the final playoff spot tonight, but it’s not the end of the season. I guess you could be frantic and depressed that they lost to the worst team in the NHL, but you could also remember that they played good enough to win and almost did. It’s not like they underestimated their opponent, got cocky and then played like crap.
They were coming off their best game of the season and people expected a victory. I get that. But the way they played, they could have easily gotten a victory. To say they failed to follow that up is ridiculous and disingenuous.
If you go back to the game where the Coyotes lost to the Jets 5-1 on January 13, the day the Jets got a new coach, it was the Coyote’s third loss in a row and maybe their season low point. They followed that up with a great effort vs. St.Louis and are 4-4-1 since that game. Despite their record not reflecting it, I would posit that they are a pretty good roll since; that they have put together a nice string of games that have seen them start to re-establish their strengths, which are team defense, goaltending, the blue line, checking and effort. This is a different team than the one we saw for the first half of the month and the last half of December.
I think it’s a team that can make the playoffs, even if they do lose to Buffalo once in a while.
Twitter: @Coyotes1234