While it might be my job to watch all these games, I honestly gave up after that third goal. I left the game on in order to witness the Canucks fourth goal that sealed it in the 3rd. Alex Burrows was a complete jerk with 3 goals and the rest of the team wasn't that much more polite to it's visitors. Roberto Luongo made penty of saves, even if the 2nd period was the only real challenge. While the Canucks were the ones getting on the scoreboard, the Coyotes are the ones that really gave this game up. The goals weren't all that spactacular, the setups not anything special, THe Coyotes just seemed to not have their heads in the game. The defense was just standing around and looked just lost. Guys were left uncovered around the net, lanes were left unfilled. It was just a poor poor effort all around for our guys.
The Good: Hey, at least we came out fighting in the second period. After getting outshot in the first we really came back out and shut down the Canucks and got a ton of chances. the shots in the period were 16-5 and thanks to that the Coyotes outshot the Canucks over the entire game 31-24. Another plus was the emotion (albeit a little bit late) that the Coyotes suddenly had in the third period. Bissonnette fought Hordichuk and Vernon Fiddler of all people took on Tanner Glass. And we just seemed to want to hit a lot more. Hell, maybe if we came out of the gates that way our game wouldn't have been such garbage.
The Bad: Other than those two things mentioned above, nothing else really went right. Some good shifts here and there, but guys we count on every game played pretty pooly. In fact, for three of the four goals against the same line was out there. Pyatt - Lang - Winnik. Not good guys. Worse than that our top defensive pairing of Ed Jovanovski and Zbynek Michalek were out there for 3 goals too. What the heck were you doing guys? Even Ilya Bryzgalov was getting angry. Coyotes players were just standing around watching or chasing the puck like they were a peewee squad.
The Ugly: In the tough Western Conference one loss can mean a lot right now. While it's only one and we're still in fourth, the majority of the teams below us have a game in hand to make up the one or two points they trail by. 5 through 8 are all within 2 points, Vancouver, Nashville, Colorado and Los Angeles are all there and the only way we can stay ahead is to keep on winning. luckily there is at least a little bit of buffer between those teams and the #9 Detroit Red Wings.