Quote:
Originally Posted by Five-hole
What’s the neat story? Perennially awful team that picks top 10 every year finally makes the playoffs in a year where the western conference wild card teams can barely manage 80 point seasons?
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It's good for the league when teams that have trouble drawing make the playoffs. If they can get fans back in the arena by having some success it helps to float all the boats in the NHL. Wealth redistribution is a real thing, and the better some of these poor market teams do, the less that teams like the Flames have to give away from their own dollars. It might end up helping the team pay for a new arena down the road if they can keep more of their profits.
It's astounding to me that fans of the game can be so short-sighted and hateful towards teams that just don't have the same income level to be competitive year in and year out. The Coyotes are basically the Oakland A's of the NHL. They have to be inventive with their limited budget to even be relevant in any given year. Add to that, they've lost a ton of games to injury with key players, and I think it's a great story of a plucky team that has found a way to win in spite of it all. Rick Tocchet should get a lot of votes for coach of the year looking at that situation. Their top scorer has 44 points. That would put Keller 6th on the Flames roster, just one point of 7th place Mikael Backlund. If Backlund was our top scorer, there's no way we'd be in a playoff spot right now.
And before anyone starts yapping about moving the team, save it. After Seattle's expansion market, there are few markets that would support an NHL team any better than Arizona could.