hockey yelling: Caps/Coyotes pregame

I love the Coyotes. I'll say that straight up, I've got a soft spot for underdogs, especially feisty, gritty ones like the Coyotes who refuse to be considered underdogs at all. But I don't root against the Caps, ever, so tonight the Coyotes are going down, because fuck you, we need a win, and we will climb over your cold, motionless bodies strewn across the ice to get it.

The Coyotes are about as far out of our division as you can get, and we don't play them often, so in case Biz doesn't provide enough of a preview for tonight's game, here you go: fun facts, trapdoors, and Taylor Pyatt's eyes.

FUCK THE HATERS AWARD

Mike Smith, former backup nobody with the Tampa Bay Lightning, was informed over and over since his signing with the Coyotes that he was no Ilya Bryzgalov and that the bottom was going to fall out of the team this year with him in goal.

He chose to respond by becoming awesome. He's fourth in the league right now with a stellar .936 SV%, has responded flawlessly to all kinds of situations--basically either the Coyotes scouting staff knows secrets that we do not, or Smith was bitten by a radioactive Patrick Roy this summer or something.

Let's all appreciate his curly hair:

POWERLESSNESS AWARD

The Coyotes power play. 1 for the past 21 chances--and since our PK is one thing that's been good for us--good being a relative term at the moment--hopefully this is a strength going up against a weakness. No such luck with their PK, because it's been awesome. Boy, we could sure use a puck-moving PP quarterback right about now! Hahaha, just kidding, I don't know where we would find one of those!