We Want Revenge - Coyotes to Face Red Wings In First Round Rematch

It's official Phoenix Coyote fans. The Coyotes will return to the post-season against a familiar foe, the Detroit Red Wings. I'm sure a lot of people are saying "WHY?! I HATE THOSE GUYS AND THEIR FANS WHARGARBL!" But in reality unless the 4-5 matchup was against the Kings, this is actually a good thing for the Coyotes. Sure they don't have home-ice like last year, but it's not like that really mattered anyhow. The Coyotes ended up losing in 7 games with 3 of the four losses coming at Jobing.com arena. Sure the Wings are still a solid team, but not dominant like they have been in the past. They've still got familiar faces that we know and hate, but those faces look a little older by the day and coming into the post-season they honestly haven't looked the strongest.

In all honesty I think this is the perfect series to get the Coyotes going again. They've been trying to find their groove again as guys come back into the lineup from injury and what could be more motivating than beating the team that knocked you out the previous season? That's just my emotion talking. You want numbers right? Well in the season series the Coyotes went 2-0-2. The two wins were split, one at home in Glendale and a win in Detroit. Average age? Detroit 30.8 (Oldest in the league) Phoenix 28.2 (5th oldest). The Wings are again a pretty solid team on the special teams, and that's something the Coyotes are going to have to improve on to make a series of this again. We'll do more stats related posts on the run up to the beginning of the series, but I can say that whatever the numbers say Detroit hasn't looked all that great in the games I've seen lately. Howard has been okay, but the guys they count on to be good have turned the puck over and just looked tired. I certainly hope that's true coming into this series.