Some Movement in the Desert

The Phoenix Coyotes were in New York to take on the Rangers on Thursday night, but a bout of the flu leveled their number one goalie for the evening, as Ilya Bryzgalov was not fit to even dress in the game. In his place, Jason LaBarbera got the start, but they were unable to make a minor-league call-up before the game, so they were forced to sign the first available free agent goalie to back up LaBarbera.  Since the flu bug was bad enough to keep Bryzgalov from even dressing, I get the feeling that he might miss another start before he is able to come back into the line-up.

Bryzgalov has been solid for the Coyotes this season, going 12-6-6 with 2 shutouts for 28 points in the pool this year, ranking him 47th in pool scoring, 14th among goalies this season.  Despite being in the top half among starting goalies in points, the Coyotes are still on the outside looking in on the playoff picture, as of Friday afternoon.  They are firmly in the race though and it could definitely swing in their favour soon.

On another note, Wojtek Wolski was not in the Coyotes' line-up on Thursday night against the Rangers and it appears that he was a healthy scratch for the team.  In Wolski's last five games, he has only picked up an assist and has been a -1, so a healthy scratch does make some sense.  With the Coyotes losing in the shootout on Thursday, I would imagine Wolski will be re-inserted into the line-up, if he was indeed a healthy scratch.

In 27 games played, Wolski has picked up 14 points, 4 goals and 10 assists, ranking him 236th in pool scoring, which is quite a ways down from the 58th spot, where he finished the 2010 season.  Wolski has been battling injury through the season as well, which could also be another fair reason to give him some rest.

Finally, the Coyotes also sent Oliver Ekman-Larsson back down to San Antonio of the AHL, after playing a 3-game stint with the big club.  In those 3 games, Ekman-Larsson did pick up an assist, but has fallen down the depth chart a bit, finding a lot more minutes with the farm team.

All three players mentioned in this blog are all in the draft, on one team or another.  Bryzgalov belongs to the 16th place team of Jani's, while Wolski plays for Neil's draft team, which is currently ranked 9th in the standings, while Ekman-Larsson belongs to the 18th place team of Clayton's.  Not a great deal of impact on the money teams at the moment, rather just affecting teams that want to get into the money.

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