Last Stop Minnesota
The Phoenix Coyotes end their road trip against the Minnesota Wild Sunday afternoon as they look to improve their current series to 3-1 and to improve their road record of 15-9-0, which is the third best in the NHL.
Ilya Bryzgalov will obviously get the start, but so far in his career he has yet to win a game against the Wild with a GAA of 3.13 and a save percentage of .892 in four appearances.
The opposing goaltender still looks to be decided. Number one goalie Niklas Backstrom may not get the start today due to his 2-2 record in his past five starts and a 3.40 GAA and a .868 save percentage. Even though the Wild won their game against Detroit 6-5 in the shootout, Backstrom was pulled after allowing four goals.
Josh Harding, meanwhile, came off the bench to enable the Wild to win the game against the Red Wings and earned the victory against the Blackhawks as he faced 43 shots but allowed 41.
Even though Backstrom’s performance has been spotty for the past few games, against Phoenix, he is outstanding as he has posted a 1.17 GAA and a .963 save percentage. Plus, he became a little defensive when asked about his recent struggles and he has yet to lose to the Phoenix Coyotes lifetime.
There is a first time for everything.
After being called out by Jacques Lemaire for his inconsistent performance last week, lately Marian Gaborik has been on a tear. A week ago, he was a minus-8 in seven games after his brilliance against the New York Rangers. For the past three games, it is remarkably different. He has three goals, four assists, a shootout winner, and a plus-7.
Having Gaborik hot right now is not a good thing, especially with the other weapons that the Wild has to beat teams. Gaborik leads the team in goals scored and in points, but Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Brian Rolston, Eric Belanger, Brent Burns, Pavol Dmitra, and Mark Parrish can certainly make life difficult for the Coyotes. Parrish did in the last game as he scored a pivotal goal.
Mikko Koivu has been very good recently as well with points in five of his last seven games.
Shane Doan is on a six-game point streak and Peter Mueller has at least a point in three of the last four games. The Coyotes will need production from everyone tonight, especially from the VHS line as they will need to generate offense against a stingy goaltender.
The Coyotes got another taste of playoff hockey against the Canucks. When allowing the first goal, the Coyotes have been better coming from behind to win games. Clearly, they play better with the lead as their winning percentage is first in the NHL with a 17-1 record when scoring first. However, they can win when the opposition scores first.
Currently, they have six wins when the opposition gets the first goal, but the Wild has five wins in that same statistic. No longer should we think that if the Coyotes let one go by the game is over – if there is time left in the game, they do not give up.
The Wild so far have won both games against the Coyotes, but the Coyotes are capable of winning today’s contest.
We don’t stop till the 3 stars are announced LOL
Wild have been on a tear and with Koivu back in the line up it could get hairy. Part of me would love to face a shaky Backstrum rather than a hot Harding and part of me doesn’t wanna temp fate by having Backs get his confidence back…against us.
Either way I’ll be screamin my living room down (think I better skip bein in public for this one…got a feelin the potty mouth might runneth over).
Thanx for a great preview as always.
Onyx