I’d like to see much more from Fischer. I think it’s too soon to scratch him (and kill his confidence) but he really didn’t do much yesterday.
I feel like if the Coyotes are going to play with this kind of pace, and with really agitating presences like Caggiula and Pitlick running amok like last night, games are going to get ugly.
We’ve witnessed far too often in the Tocchet are how this team responds to physical challenges. Typically one of our skilled guys gets rag-dolled and humiliated and the rest of the team sits on their heads, stares at the rafters and whistles a tune, pretending they saw nothing and wishing they were anywhere else in the world. It absolutely kills team morale and has literally resulted in losing streaks.
The team has proven to be too fragile to recover quickly from physical humiliation. I think this is inevitable if the team consistently plays, as we all desperately wish they would, like they did last night.
As a result, I strongly support dressing John Hayden instead of Christian Fischer. Hayden is the best and most willing fighter we’ve had since Rinaldo. He’s no enforcer, but he’s willing to go toe-to-toe and handles himself well. I remember him getting the better of Marcus Foligno in one of the longer, better fights in a while. Foligno is just about as tough as pretty much any regular forward in the NHL these days.
We won’t miss Fischer at all. He doesn’t do anything on the ice anyway. Hayden isn’t a good NHL player. But the delta between Fischer and Hayden is easily eclipsed in my opinion by the fact that we would actually have someone on the bench who can prevent us from being absolutely victimized by the next Cory Perry or Jamie Benn.
Pretending this stuff doesn’t matter is absurd given what we’ve seen with this team in recent years. They absolutely unravel and go into a tail spin when teams get nasty with them. Ryan Reaves could literally end our season next week if he was so inclined.
