The Hockey

The Coyotes season is underway, and i have managed to not say a word about them up to this point. I do actually feel kinda bad about it. I admittedly do not follow the NHL as much as other sports. My friend over at One Fan's Perspective is a passionate fan, and can do a much better job writing about the Coyotes than i can, but here's a small piece on them.

Two weeks ago the Phoenix Coyotes once again took to the ice for the start of the 2007-2008 season. Starting off with a bang, the Coyotes won their first game, but promptly dropped their next two. Currently, the 'Yotes sit at 3-6, staring another long season in the face. However, unlike the last couple of years, there is reason to be optimistic about this franchise in the near future.

The Coyotes are stocked with young talent, including nine players 24 years old or younger. Their youngest, Peter Mueller, is just 19 and scored his first goal last week. They also have a decent core of veteran's including Shane Doan, who is off to his typical slow start goal-scoring wise, Steven Reinprecht and Ed Jovanovski. Doan does actually lead the team in points, but needs to start finding the net more with just one goal so far this season (his 200th career goal).

The goalkeeping has been decent, although not spectacular. With a GAA of 2.83 and 3.35, both Alex Auld and Mikael Tellqvist need to keep a few more shots out of the net to give this team a chance to compete every night.

The good news for the Coyotes is that Josh Gratton has been recalled from San Antonio after his conditioning assignment. Phoenix played well with Gratton in the line-up last year, and missed him when he wasn't there. Also, their first round draft pick, Kyle Turris (who i wrote about here), is absolutely destroying for the U. of Wisconsin. He has 5 goals and 7 assists in just 4 games so far, a ridiculous pace. This is why he was considered by many to be the top center in the draft.

So while the Coyotes are struggling a bit now, there is a bright future in store for them. This team is a hard-working, good-skating team, and eventually their fortunes will start to turn. Until then, they just need to hang on.

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A couple of other things regarding hockey and the Phoenix Coyotes. I have no idea why anyone from a professional sports franchise would take the time to look at a hack site such as this one, but i got a nice email from one H. Khan with the Coyotes saying he enjoyed the site. As such, i thought i would pass along a couple of things their website has going on:

CoyotesTrax, where different player's iTunes playlists are listed, and CoyotesHockeyHQ, where you can play games and create your own 'Hockey Face'.