In one of the strangest games of the season so far, the Coyotes defeated the Kings, in regulation, 4-3. The win moves the Coyotes ahead of the Stars into 8th, and don't look now, but they are only three points back of the Wild for 7th and only five points behind the Kings for 3rd in the division.

Since coming off the break with three straight losses, the Coyotes have gone 6-2, and have won four out of their last five games. Only a weak first period against the Bruins last week has prevented them from winning five games in a row.

If the playoffs began today, the Coyotes would face the Blues, a team I think they match up worse than LA, Anaheim or even Chicago. 7th or higher would go a long way to making the Coyotes a second round team, and since the Coyotes have a horrible attendance record, new owners and years of bleeding money, two rounds of playoffs could do so much for this team, regarding their future desire to spend to the cap and chase top quality free agents.

Despite winning the game, the Coyotes played absolutely horrible last night. I think it was easily their worst game since the Olympics and they were lucky to escape with one point, let alone two.

The game began with LA dominating the play and Smith keeping the game scoreless. At one point Smith made an incredible save that lead to a wild goal mouth scramble that failed to result in a Kings goal only because Doughty couldn't get any wood - or is that composite graphite?- on the rolling puck.

I don't even think the Coyotes had a shot, and they certainly didn't have a scoring chance, until Klinkhammer tipped a puck at Quick and then put in his own rebound, about half-way through the period.

The Kings responded to the goal by immediately taking a penalty which the Coyotes capitalized on, scoring their second goal 63 seconds after Klinkhammer opened the scoring. The Coyotes, figuring two minutes was enough effort for one period, proceeded to let the Kings take back over the game after the goal. LA scored late in the period to make it 2-1 on a beautiful shot from rookie Tanner Pearson that Smith really had no chance on.

Near the end of the first period, there was a perfect example of what makes Oliver Ekman-Larsson one of the best defenseman in hockey, despite not leading the league in scoring or being known as a physical player. Anze Kopitar grabbed the puck at centre ice, picked up some speed and crossed the blueline looking to make a play. It was a dangerous looking rush, but OEL just appeared out of nowhere to knock the puck away, then he turned as it was brought back in the zone and chipped it off the boards out to centre.

This isn't the kind of play that makes the highlights, but what was so great about it was the way in which OEL read the play. Instead of going for the hit, or skating backwards like I think most defenseman 50+ feet out from their net are going to do, he angled himself perfectly at Kopitar and chipped the puck away. This had the double value of not only breaking up the play, but leaving him in perfect position to continue to read the play as it developed further, and when the puck came back in the zone, he was right there to get it out again.

This is just one example of why I said the other day that he should win the Norris Trophy. If you watch him play every day, he does these kind of solid, unspectacular and subtle plays all the time. He is legitimately one of the smartest players in hockey. If you only see him regularly in the highlight packages, you aren't seeing the facet of his game that makes him so great. Furthermore, his offensive numbers (and Yandle's who are even better) are astounding when you consider how weak the Phoenix forwards are. It's not crazy to think that if he was surrounded by the kind of forwards on Ottawa or Winnipeg that his numbers would be closer to Byfuglien or Karlson's.


Despite being badly outplayed for nearly the entire period, the Coyotes somehow lead after one. Though the shots were only 12-10 in favor of the Kings, the Kings had way more scoring chances and they didn't let up in the second.

The second period, much like the game on Saturday against the Flames, was just terrible. The Coyotes were outshot 15-3 and thoroughly dominated in every aspect of the game. Smith continued to show why he is worth every penny of his contract and the Coyotes managed to escape to the third down just 3-2.

In the third period, the Coyotes woke up a bit and started to bring the play back at the Kings. They scored on a power-play on a goal that seemed to go right through Quick's glove and then tied it on a goal that went just across the line so fast no one knew it was in at first. In fact, while the goal was scored on the initial Halpern shot, it appeared that Quick saved it with his stick and then made a second unbelievable save on Doan point blank. The crowd - and the play by play guy - gave him a standing ovation for the two saves, only to be given a sucker punch seconds later when replays showed the first shot actually crossing the line.

After that, the Kings looked deflated and the Coyotes held on rather easily, though Smith had to make a couple saves to preserve the lead. One crazy thing happened with the game winding down and the goalie out: Phoenix iced the puck with a bank shot off the boards and it went down the ice and hit the post and then icing was called.

I wonder if this was the correct call. While I realize a shot off the post doesn't count as a shot, if a goalie was in net, he certainly would have had to direct the puck into the corner, since he couldn't take the chance of it going in, and icing would have been negated. Either way, that's something I have never seen before.

Next up the Florida Panthers visit Phoenix for a game on Thursday, and the Stars face the Penguins tonight.

Twitter:coyotes1234

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