I'm not sure it would be entirely accurate to say the Phoenix Coyotes played a great game on Tuesday night. Sure, they beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-0, moving into first place in the Pacific Division, but they did so by allowing 54 shots on goal. When you're allowing nearly a shot per minute from your opponent to reach your goalie that's probably not a sign of strong play. They were able to come out in the win column because Mike Smith played a great game (a record-setting game, as it turns out, as the 54 saves were an NHL record for a regulation game), making some pretty incredible saves as he put his third straight shutout on the board.
Two saves he didn't have to make came late in the second period -- with Phoenix attempting to kill off one of its seven penalties -- as Coyotes forward Boyd Gordon gave up his body for the good of the team on two separate occassions, throwing himself in front of two Nikita Nikitin shots from close range. When it was all said and done, Gordon could barely stand up and get himself off the ice.
On Tuesday I argued that it probably doesn't matter how many shots your team blocks over the course of the season, which seemed to stir up quite a bit of debate.
The argument isn't that Boyd Gordon should have avoided blocking these shots and allowed them to get through to the net. Not at all. He did what he had to do for the team in that situation, earning stick taps and attaboys for playing the game with grit and sandpaper. The argument is that it would have been better for the Coyotes if they weren't forced to be in this position where Gordon had to throw himself in front of two straight rockets off the stick of Nikitin.
Either way, it was a pretty solid game for Gordon as he was given the difficult task of handling 10 defensive zone faceoffs (winning five of them), usually against Columbus' top players, and playing over six minutes on the penalty kill. He also scored what proved to be the game-winning goal at the 5:45 mark of the second period.
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