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Well this is it. The whole season down to one game. It's us or the Red Wings. It's Good or Evil. It's the good story vs. the same tired one. Basically if you're not rooting for the Coyotes at this point what the heck are you doing? (Other than probably wearing a Wings jersey...) This is going to be huge. Game Sevens always are, but this game in particular should be hard fought and exciting. The majority of the games so far have been. The crowd should be a lot like game 1, just cheering their lungs out. I'm excited, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous too.
On the Coyotes end they just have to replicate the effort they put in in Detroit. Ilya Bryzgalov was outstanding in goal.Taylor Pyatt stole the game that Holstrom plays, parking himself in front of the net. Even Robert Lang played well. His nifty overthought passes were actually working. I'm not saying all those things will go right again, but The power play suddenly worked again and we even got a shorthanded goal. We do however need to stay out of the penalty box. I'm not counting on killing off 3 penalties in the first 6 minutes again. Not a game we want to get into.
Detroit is going to come out trying to show that Game 6 was a fluke. Jimmy Howard looked mediocre on most of the scoring, while others were just the fault of the defense allowing great chances in front of him. The Wings were still pressing on offense, but just couldn't make anything happen. They ended up with two goals, but with how much they possessed the puck early it could have been worse. Justin Abdelkader tried playing the pest role and got beat down by Derek Morris and then had a wrestling match with Keith Yandle.
Some writers are saying that the Wings have more to play for as they have higher expectations put on them and the Coyotes are just a feel good story. That's bull. What would motivate you more? People telling you you should be in the second round? Or people telling you you don't belong there. I'd go with the latter in that case.
Starting Goalies
Played amazing on Sunday. We need a repeat performance out of him to keep this going. He doesn't have to be the most outstanding guy on the ice, but I'd all accept that.
Yeah... "the Coyotes got Lucky" on Sunday five times against the rookie netminder. I say we need to demonstrate how much luck was really involved there. The guys in the room likely don't give a crap, but the fans do. Either way the road to the Second round goes through his five-hole.
Key Players
If he's able to play the building will absolutely explode. It'll replicate the volume of Game 1 with fans cheering all game and pushing him to play his best. He's still a game time decision, but all the news seemed to look positive. He won't play if the staff says he's not going to be able to play his hard hitting game though.
Because it worked for Game 6, we just have to continue to make him ineffective. He still ended up with an assist, but we weren't allowing him time and space to make the spectacular play. That needs to continue tonight.