Hey this is a great look for the Coyotes: play like crap and win. It's better than the rest of the season where they played (mostly) great and lost. The return of Alex Galchenyuk was overshadowed by a hattrick from Christian Fischer.
Christian Fischer!
For perspective, he scored 15 goals last year in total, so three in one night is crazy.
The win was great because it overshadowed what a horrible coach Rick Tocchet is.
I tried to give him a chance, but man, he is awful.
"Hey coach, your team can't score do you have any ideas?"
"Do I? Watch this:"
5v5 ice time:
Leading defenseman: Kevin Connauton
Fifth most used defenseman: Oliver Ekman Larsson
Most used forward: :Lawson Crouse
Yes, this really happened, in a real NHL game, an actual NHL coach used Lawson Crouse - a player whose presence in the NHL is mystery worthy of a Mythbusters / Unsolved Mysteries crossover episode - as his most used forward at 5v5.
To the surprise of no one, Crouse was ineffective and the Jackets controlled 60% of the play when he was on the ice.
And what about the player who is the big payoff for years of being crappy? What about the most talented offensive player the franchise has, the player with the highest ceiling and the 6'4 centre every team hopes to land?
He played under ten minutes 5v5.
On the fourth line.
With Josh Archibald and Nick Cousins.
"Hey coach, our prized prospect needs to break through, have any ideas?"
"Yeah, what I like to do is put offensive players in a position so that they can never succeed? Do you see Anthony Duclair around here? Me neither. So I'm going to use this trick I learned from Barry Melrose, what you do is you tie the players feet together with fishing line so he can barely move, then you say 'when you earn it, I'll take this off.'"
Hey it's a rare night that John Torterella isn't the most embarrassing guy in the building.
As for Galchenyuk, he was terrible but that's OK for one game.
Somehow, the Coyotes won this which will only serve to reinforce the idea that Tocchet is competent.
But who cares? Did you guys see that Crosby goal? An Oiler win would have won me a hundred Schrutebucks, and I didn't even care.
But even Sid would struggle with Cousins and Archibald.
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