Ducks @ Coyotes - Game 51 - The Briefest of Recaps

[Box Score] - [Game Page]- [Anaheim's Reaction]

[Shift Charts] - [Head-to-Head TOI] - [Corsi and Fenwick] - [5-on-5 Faceoffs]

Super-sub Barbs

Underwhelming Officiating

Cogliano Second Period Natural Hat Trick

Killjoy Power Play

Early Exit For Mike Smith

Dwindling Playoff Chances

Five for Winning

1. Play hard. The Yotes are fresh off a break and won't be playing again until Saturday. There is no reason to leave anything in the tank. This happened for the first 20 minutes. The other 40 minutes not so much. The positives were Jason Labarbera's performance and the Whitney-Hanzal-Vrbata line continuing their solid play including the Wizard getting Phoenix's lone tally.

2. Good defense. The Ducks have been outscoring their opponents 2-1 in the past 10 games. Defense is going to need to be tight to keep them from getting a lead. The Yotes kept the Ducks big guns off the score sheet not including Teemu's empty netter. They chose to let Andrew Cogliano do the damage instead.

3. Finish in regulation. No need to give up a point, and the Yotes have lost all four of their overtime games this past month.Successful on this front. Only problem is it was a regulation loss.

4. Get motivation from the crowd. Even though the Coyotes lost their last game against Anaheim, but they won the last home game against the Ducks 4-2. Hopefully they can feed off the energy of a game against a Conference rival. The crowd had little to be excited about after the first intermission.

5. Don't chase the game. The last time these two teams met the final score was 6-2 Ducks, which was just terrible. They can't let the Ducks get ahead this time. The good - Coyotes scored the first goal. The bad - The Ducks the next four.

The Desert Dogs have another long break in between games as they don't play against until Saturday when they host the Sharks.