I want to know who decided Winnipeg, Denver and home was a good idea when returning from the Olympic break? I'm tired just thinking about it, imagine how the players feel! And it wasn't the most successful journey. We got one point. WOOHOO. We are by know means out of the playoff hunt yet but we are not helping ourselves. Something needs to change with this team. They are still playing subpar and without urgency. There was no message sent with sending Klesla down. It may have been used, per staff, to send a message but as far as I can tell the message was not received. There needs to be a trade. I do not know what this trade should or will be but there has to be a change.
And contrary to what the guy behind me kept saying, Ribeiro is not the problem. Just as Yandle was not the problem. Just as Smith is not the problem. The entire team is the problem. With the exception of a few players, no one seems to gel. There is no consistency and there is a lot of sheer lazy play going on. When you see a chance, you seize it. You dig deep and pull out that last bit of energy to get shot off. You don't lazily dump it and crawl over the bench.
Thursday the Coyotes went up to Hell, I mean Winnipeg, and took it all the way to a shootout. At least we got a point. Well, I did not dig deep and make notes from this game and therefore have nothing much to add. I feel I wrote a lot on Colorado and St. Louis so I think that makes up for it. 😉
Friday the Coyotes ended up in Denver. This was a train wreck, of epic proportions. They looked terrible. Ribeiro seemed to have a melt down. Maybe he did not get his beauty sleep with all the traveling? My favorite part of the evening is when someone tweeted the Coyotes and asked the why of Ribeiro's misconduct. We couldn't see the penalty box from the TV cameras so this was a perfectly innocent question. The Coyotes twitter account responded with the fact that he received a misconduct. Duh, we already knew that. I hate when people don't really answer a question. I wasn't expecting them to be all, "Those stupid refs tossed him for no reason!", just "We aren't sure the reason. We will tweet if we hear what happened". Or even, "He was still talking" or "He was banging the glass" (which is what Tyson was saying). It sounds as if he thought his penalty was up and he wasn't being let out of the box and that is why he banged his stick. It did not sound as if there was malicious intent behind it but I was not there. I did not witness it; these are just my thoughts. I could be way off base. I think the 10 minutes was not warranted. I was reminded that Yandle did something similar last season and just received an additional 2 minutes. That seems fair.
The highlight of the St. Louis game was Biz scoring first on Miller. It was also fun being up 2-0 for awhile and then it was over. St. Louis realized sometime between the second and third that they are… St. Louis. The Coyotes played at about the same skill and intensity level all three periods. St. Louis just dominated the third. Instead of matching or surpassing St, Louis we continued to play the same way. I am not going to blame terrible officiating. It happens. It is a factor you can't control. When you aren't getting calls, you need to step up and play that much harder. The only non-call that bothered me was the trip on Yandle toward the end of the third. That could have been the difference maker. I say could have but in all reality it probably wouldn't have made too much of a difference. It just would have kept the score at 3-2 and made it easier to play for a point. But bad calls or non-calls happen and will always happen. You have to find a way to rise above it and get the points. The Coyotes may have started making a few mistakes and playing worse after St. Louis tied it but it comes down to, St. Louis became the better team on the ice and the Coyotes didn't respond.
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