Easy come...

Watching the Coyotes flounder brought back some bad memories. Anyone remember 7 years of futility? Well, it came flooding back with a couple of plays:

1. Late 1st period, Flames are up 1-0 on a PP marker, but the Coyotes are still in the game. At times they had actually carried the play, gotten some chances. Oleg Saprykin decides to get into it with Dion Phanuef at the offensive faceoff circle. A little scrum insues, but nothing becomes of it, and Saprykin continues to line up against Dion. As the puck drops, Oleg tries to stick DD, but instead takes a shoulder to the head. The puck rims around the Flames defensive zone where Hamrlik picks it up - as Saprykin jumps at him, fists first. As he innefectually bounced off of Hamrlik, the ref's hand went up. Saprykin was sent to the box for charging, and the Huselius scored a goal that effectively put the Coyotes out of the game.

2. Late 2nd period. Derek Morris takes a hooking penalty in the offensive zone. Then he takes an unsportsmanlike penalty, (I assume for whining to the refs, a very Derek Morris like action). Flames get a 4 minute power play, and although they don't score, it kills off 4 minutes of time the Coyotes needed to get back into the game.

Nice goal by Reinprecht at the end though.

I'm sure Wayne is thinking that with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Ghosts of Season's Past and Present

You know, I've watched Oleg Saprykin try that god damned behind the goal line shot about 1000x, but this may be only the first time it succeeded. Of course, its not that I actually regret getting rid of Oleg "great in practice" Saprykin, but I'm sure it's really fitting that he manages to pull off the stupidest play in the world against us.

It was also really 'pleasant' to see Reinprecht score an important one against us. I'll never quite understand why we gave him up, especially for nothing, although I suppose the general point is that his offensive skill wasn't quite high enough for a 1-2 line position, and his defensive skill wasn't high enough for a 3-4 line position, but either way, I would rather him over Leclerc (or a bag of pucks).

Fitting too that he beat out Langkow for a loose puck in OT which lead to the winner. Overall I would say it wasn't the best OT period for us, but then, once 60 minutes are over this team tends to pack it in. Hell, after 50 or so minutes we tend to pack it in, or at least, we only play for about 50 minutes.

So anyway, we play one of the few teams we've actually beaten on the road, go up by a goal late in the game and still manage to blow it. Perhaps beating them earlier in the year decreased our statistical odds of beating them again (8 road wins and 2 against the same team? Blasphemy), perhaps the Coyotes have turned into a good team, perhaps the hotel beds the players sleep on are so nice they stay asleep the whole game, or perhaps we are so afraid to win on the road we intentionally lose. Either way, there is no doubt road games are haunting us, and will probably continue to haunt us for the remainder of this season (and then this season will haunt us! YAY!)

Much like today we were haunted by the ghosts of season's past.

Anyway, can anyone find and then hit the panic button?