Sorry for the spotty coverage this week, I've been watching Elections and Back to the Future and the Blue Jays and it was a pretty busy week at work and throughout the whole thing I had this pesky cold that really knocked me on my ass.
So what's been going on?
The Blue Jays lost in one of the most insane and dramatic sports events I've ever seen. A Jose Bautista bomb tied the game, and then there was a momentum killing rain delay, followed by a failure to get a man home from third with no one out in the top of the ninth.
Between the lack of a left-handed bullpen option, the managerial bungling of John Gibbons, and umpires intentionally trying to prevent a Toronto appearance in the World Series, it's honestly shocking that they made it within one game and 90 feet of the World Series. Still, it was a great run and the best three weeks of sports I can recall. (Excepting the embarrassing amount of calls that went against the Jays.)
In other news, Canada elected a new Prime Minister. I couldn't be happier. It's always exciting when bad guys are defeated and hope is restored. I honestly thought the Jays were just going to make it a full Hollywood ending for us here, but regardless of if they won or not, it was a spectacular week.
And so sure, hockey got pushed a little bit to the back burner with everything else going on, but there is still lots to talk about - like how two star (or at least high quality) players have been hurt in practice so far this year? What the hell is that? Just bad luck I guess.
Or what about the NHL player safety department? Just when we thought they were maybe getting it when they suspended Torres for 41 games, they go and let Rinaldo off the hook? I don't know or understand why teams even dress these idiots. I strongly disagree that that hit was not suspendable, especially with the history of the guy who did it.
But then again, the season isn't a month old and I've seen multiple boarding calls that were for two minutes or completely ignored and it's clear the NHL is content to go with the status quo here until tragedy strikes. It's not like it would be hard to toss everyone for five games who makes even the appearance of a dirty hit and give out a major penalty to anything that is even hinting at being a hit from behind.
It's not that hard.
And how about those Habs? As a guy from Toronto, its doubly hard two watch the Habs dominate the league because the Leafs are so horrible. How horrible? Nick Spaling played over 20 minutes in a game recently and Matt Hunwick played 27. Both are decent, and Hunwick is actually good, but that's still a bizarre amount of minutes to play those players.
Want to know what's worse than the Habs hot start? I heard Price was not dressing and thinking they were due for a loss, I subbed in Matt Moulson for Kuznnetsov at 6:59 PM last night. He only had 2 goals 2 assists 4 PIMs was a + 4 and had 7 shots. Bad Play Jimmy.
The other crazy thing I keep hearing about is Randy Carlyle maybe being hired again. The question is why? Since the development and tracking of advanced stats, no coach has been worse at icing poor possession teams. No coach is worse to listen to in a post-game press conference or helping to develop young players.
Might as well make Bill Watters the assistant GM or hire Dave Nonis to run the team....I watch Carlyle for three years in Toronto and all I can say is that the fact his failure is so profound and he still might get a chance to come back just shows how incestuous and tight-knit the NHL is when it comes to management positions. You can't tell me there aren't hundreds of quality young coaches out there who might bring a fresh approach and some new ideas to the NHL.
Might as well talk some Coyotes, since we're here too.
They lost to the Rangers 4-1 to the Rangers, their fourth loss in a row. At least Yandle scored, which was great. Remember when everyone was talking about their hot start and how they would use their great defense to be competitive? And how I said those wins were fluky and that they were really actually much closer to being the team that lost all six pre-season games and scored only one 5v5 goal?
Well, I am not too classy to say I told you so.
The Coyotes have lost 4 in a row. While Duclair and Domi are a blast to watch, the team is crippled by the fact that after Martin Hanzel, its centres are a complete and utter joke. As for the aforementioned kids, they're doing great but Duclair has 5 goals on 11 shots and that isn't going to last.
The Coyotes have an NHL high 106.4 PDO. They are tied with the Canadiens, but while the Canadiens have used their unsustainably high quality goaltending to go on an 8-0 run, the Coyotes only managed a 3-3-1 record, which suggests this is going to get ugly pretty soon.
Another concern I have is that Arizona has the third highest shooting percentage in the NHL at 10.7%. When regression kicks in and they stop scoring at such a high rate, the losses are going to pile up. And while I am not trying to doom and gloom you here, my point is that the team shouldn't be satisfied with their start and should be proactively trying to figure out how to get better.
The Coyotes are the sixth worst possession team in the NHL, only having the puck 47.2% of the time. This is because outside of Hanzal, all their centres are outmatched, because they keep playing Michalek on the top pairing and because they give too many minutes to the low-quality dman that is Nick Grossmann.
The good news here is that Tippett finally put Duclair and Domi together with Hanzal at even-strength and the results were amazing. As a line they were around 60% against New York and it is the first time in a long, long time the team has seemed like it has a legit first line.
Also, Stefan Elliott finally got into a game and he had the highest possession stats of any Coyotes defensemen on Thurday. Hmmmm who would have thought a swift skating puck mover would be successful in the NHL? Better scratch him quick and give another twenty minutes to Grossmann..
Anyways, that's the week. Tonight, the Coyotes play the Senators, who are also not very good. Should be fun to watch though.
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