DETROIT — Bankruptcy was bad and a broken captain perhaps even worse.
But if there’s something or someone that can kick these Phoenix Coyotes when they are down, we have yet to see it surface first in this NHL season and now in the playoffs.
It didn’t happen Sunday at Joe Louis Arena, where the Coyotes put a sock in the collective mouth of what might be the most self-entitled fan base in hockey.
It didn’t happen through a protracted summer of bickering over a bankrupt owner and whether the franchise would even remain in Arizona.
And the threat of suppression certainly hasn’t emerged from the mighty Detroit Red Wings, who have arguably been the meeker of the two teams through three games of what is developing into a most compelling Western Conference quarterfinal series.
A 4-2 win Sunday afternoon restored the Coyotes’ home-ice advantage and emphatically established a 2-1 series lead in the best-of-seven affair that is showing all signs of going the distance.
That it came with their heart and soul, Shane Doan, out for almost two thirds of the game with an undisclosed upper body injury barely made the desert dogs flinch.
“From where we’ve come, a couple of injuries aren’t going to deter us now,” Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said.
“From the start of our year, (adversity) was part of our identity and you grow hardened to that. There was no ‘we can’t do this.’ We had a game to play against a great team.”
Doan was hurt on his first shift of the second period when he collided violently and shoulder first into the end boards after tripping over Wings goalie Jimmy Howard. Tippett said doctors are evaluating Doan and “we’ll see where he’s at (on Monday).”
The captain joined first-line centre Vernon Fiddler, who was hurt Friday in Game 2 in the infirmary. But here’s yet another reason to marvel at the Coyotes and their story, which for the first time played to a national U.S. television audience on NBC.
After Doan went down, rather than a collective slump of the shoulders, the Coyotes’ puffed out their chests.
They checked a little harder, got stiffer in front of their own net and refused to let the Wings get control of the puck.
From the raucous beginning, the Coyotes showed again that it may as well have been the Leafs or Oilers they were playing. While respectful of the Wings and the collective 36 Stanley Cup rings on their roster, the visitors were far from intimidated.
Once they re-established the defensive blueprint that had got them this far but had been abandoned in Game 2, the Coyotes were in control.
Wings’ shutdown defender Nicklas Lidstrom was a minus-3, and when is the last time you’ve seen that in the playoffs?
The Coyotes scored 29 seconds into the first period and again with 32 remaining in the second, each time plunging daggers deep into an opponent that had been heavily favoured entering the series but is decidedly less so now.
With a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes, the Coyotes drew more blood when Petr Prucha expanded the lead 8:16 into the third. Johan Franzen’s goal less than two minutes later got a rise out of the crowd but not enough out of the Wings. Radim Vrbata’s goal at 11:38 restored the two-goal lead and it was time to look towards Tuesday’s Game 4.
rob.longley@sunmedia.ca
