Gameday Soundtrack: Those Boys No One Missed

I have to be honest with you: the Phoenix Coyotes bore me to death. I watch every game against the Phoenix Coyotes as a corpse after 30 minutes of play, because they’re so aggressively not fun.

Me watching Phoenix selfie!

That seems strange, because there are definitely other, more empirically uninteresting teams that the Kings play (what’s up, Perds?). The Kings even played a really eventful game against the Coyotes early this season, when Dwight King earned his first career hat trick, Mike Richards actually buried a breakaway attempt, and the Kings blew a 4-0 lead and won 7-4.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the boring burgundy jerseys, the least awesome color ever used for anything.

Whatever it is, I’m never excited for a Coyotes game. This includes tonight.

It’s even worse that the Coyotes have not been entirely awful this month. They’re seven points behind the Kings in the standings and tied with Dallas, making this game slightly important, if only because it means they could pass the Dallas Stars and jump into the wild card playoff spot.

The Kings have lost the last two games against the Coyotes, including a 3-0 shutout at the end of January. Scoring troubles seemed to make an aggravating return to LA’s play against the Anaheim Ducks, so the Kings need to nip that dumb stuff right away and actually give Phoenix something to worry about tonight.

Last time, Phoenix played their backup goaltender, Thomas Greiss. This time Mike Smith is likely to be in net, and though he has a winning record versus LA (10-4-1) in his career, everybody knows that all anyone needs to do to beat him is wait until he comes out of net and then aim for the butt.

Ugh, jeez, I’m falling asleep just thinking about the Coyotes. Woof.

Since he made a couple unfortunate mistakes during the Ducks game, it looks like Darryl Sutter may scratch Jake Muzzin. Matt Greene will likely play his first game since February 26. Jonathan Quick backed up Martin Jones on Saturday, recovering from illness. He’s set to start again for this game and has a .946 save percentage in his last seven starts.

Dean Lombardi’s Phoenix crush Keith Yandle has 11 points in his last 12 games. He’ll be someone to watch out for, although the Kings are still enjoying the Alec Martinez Advantage. With six points in his last seven games, including some great power play production, Martinez is riding pretty high right now.

Blah blah blah, at least make this lame game worth it by winning, Kings.