Coyotes hold destiny in their hands

Five games left in the regular season for the Phoenix Coyotes…they are in playoff contention, and also in contention for the division title.

What are they gonna do? Stop me if you’ve heard this phrase before: that’s why they play the games.

That phrase couldn’t be any truer then to describe the season the Coyotes have had.

In one of the strangest seasons in league history, the Coyotes are currently one point behind the division leading San Jose Sharks, yet they are eighth in the Western Conference, and just one point ahead of the Los Angeles Kings, who are below the Mendoza Line, to borrow a baseball term, and quite loosely.

The schedule makers kinda lined things up nicely for the Coyotes to round out the season, with three of the final five games coming against non-playoff teams (Columbus, Anaheim and Minnesota).

There’s two issues with the final five though: 1.) the Coyotes have lost twice this season to each one of those teams, and 2.) the two playoff bound teams on their schedule just beat them this past weekend, one in a shootout, and one in regulation.

The Coyotes have the potential to pull at least three wins out of these five, because if they play the way they’re capable of, then they could do that, if not more.

Everything is laid out for them and what they have to do to finish out, and roll into the playoffs.

Don’t just take my word for it, here’s what forward Raffi Torres had to say about it.

“We look at these next five games as five playoff games, in order to get ourselves in the big dance,” Torres said.

As we all know about playoff hockey, all you have to do is get in. Anything can happen after that…