Phoenix Coyotes’ Yandle: Team must play with desperation
Mar 18, 2014, 11:45 PM | Updated: 11:45 pm
As of Tuesday morning, the Phoenix Coyotes are once again a Western Conference playoff team.
By way of their 4-3 win over the L.A. Kings, the ‘Yotes passed Dallas for the second Wild Card spot.
The Coyotes are 33-25-11 with 77 points. There are 13 games remaining, though, so things are still very much up for grabs. The situation calls for a bit of desperation.
“We’re fighting for our lives and it’s something (that) for us to get in the playoffs, we have to win the majority of our games,” Coyotes defenseman Keith Yandle told the Dan Bickley Show with Vince Marotta Tuesday on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. “That’s what we like to do; we like to play that type of hockey and that’s what we get paid for.
“It’s one of those things. We have to be desperate; if we’re not, we’re going to find ourselves on the outside looking in.”
It’s really that simple for the Coyotes.
The Coyotes, of course, have proven capable of beating some of the best the NHL has to offer, which is partly what makes their inconsistency so maddening. It’s not as if the team isn’t talented enough to win, so why haven’t they?
“I don’t know if there’s a certain explanation for it,” Yandle said. “It’s the NHL — every team is good, every team can win games.”
Of course, that does not mean Yandle and the Coyotes don’t have losses they regret, but that is bound to happen throughout the course of an 82-game season.
“For us, we’ve just got to find that consistency of bringing it every night.”
