Five things you missed: Arizona Coyotes vs Winnipeg Jets
So Thursday night…. yeah. Thursday night.
I read one fan on Twitter last night, yelling that THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR SENDING MAX DOMI BACK DOWN TO THE JUNIORS, DAVE TIPPETT! I cried a little bit, because I really wanted to agree.
There were a couple major takeaways from the game, though, other than the fact that “Max Domi and Henrik Samuelsson could have singlehandedly saved the entire game”. Even Johnny Hockey couldn’t save his team on opening night, so let’s let those two do their thing in London and Portland. This is what really stood out for me the most:
1. The team wasn’t working together enough
The team did some things right, they did some things wrong. The biggest thing I noticed throughout the game, though, was how disjointed the entire roster looked. The only offensive line that I saw passing together consistently was the first line, and the only defensemen that I saw covering their entire zone were Chris Summers and Connor Murphy. Passing looked poor, and skaters weren’t anticipating moves from their teammates. The entire game looked very “every man for himself”.
Even Mike Smith was only so much to blame for the loss.
He posted a terrible SV%, and that’s all on him- and he probably knows it. I saw extremely poor defensive coverage all night, though, both from the defense and the offense- and if you think a team’s offense shouldn’t be the ones stopping goals, you’re right on par with Alex Ovechkin– and we all know how that’s working out for him.
2. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a game changer, in both the good and bad sense
I haven’t seen anyone call Oliver Ekman-Larsson overrated yet, probably because we almost never see him looking like this. Last night, though, he looked downright terrible- and we can chalk it up to nerves, an off game, not feeling well, even the possibility of a lingering illness or injury that no one knows about- but the bottom line is that it’s clear the team needs OEL going full strength for the team to win.
If Ekman-Larsson having a poor game leads to these kinds of losses, the team won’t even be in the ballpark of the playoffs. It’s obviously going to take more than him to pull off wins, and I don’t think anyone’s disputing that. This game really solidified his role as a game-changer, though, and that could set the tone for the whole season.
3. MOVE UP, GUYS!
So Mikkel Boedker scored the first goal of the Coyotes season, primarily because he’s an insanely good hockey player and no one’s disputing that. I’d like to focus on the second goal for a minute, instead.
Martin Hanzal isn’t by any stretch of the imagination my favorite player on the Arizona Coyotes. He netted the team’s second goal, though, doing something that the whole team needs to do a lot more of- and that’s crowd the net. There were so many opportunities for the Coyotes to score- by the end of the game, the two teams had even SOG, and I don’t think that Ondrej Pavelec is that much better than Mike Smith. Sometimes, in fact, he’s way worse- but he posted the better save percentage, because no one was ever around to follow through on shots taken.
Hanzal’s goal was a little bit of luck and a lot of skill, but it looked pretty similar to someone else’s goal this week:
So, spoiler alert, Vrbata‘s goal was eventually counted. He and Hanzal passed, rushed to the net, and focused on clearing a path to tip in shots taken by teammates. This is one of the most effective ways to score in a game- and the Coyotes acted like they’d never been taught this before.
(The Jets, on the other hand, were constantly rushing up to await missed shots and rebounds. That’s partially why they won.)
4. PUCK POSSESSION.
Keith Yandle really knows how to piss a girl off.
I started to count the number of times I saw him chasing the puck down in his own zone- and eventually gave up. He was pretty lucky that half the time he was alone on that stretch of ice, or the score might have very easily ended at 12-2.
Live Feed
Puck Prose
Yandle doesn’t exclusively carry the blame for this, though. The whole team was a puck possession nightmare- and while the Jets kind of were too, once you combined the grotesque number of takeaways with the lack of effort up by Pavelec’s net and OEL’s lackluster performance… and you get a 6-2 score.
I don’t know if Tippett needs to request loan of John Scott for a week and have him chase after various members of the Coyotes roster until they learn how to handle the puck under pressure, but another performance like last night- particularly in that area- could spell disaster for the team. The only consolation should be that if the Jets continue to have such poor puck possession, as well, the Coyotes will have some nice golfing buddies come late April.
5. Starting off strong is more important than finishing strong
I won’t say that the Coyotes looked good in the final forty minutes of the game, because at no point in time did they look like a franchise that would confidently win a game. Had they posted a first period that looked like even a fraction less of a train wreck, though, the game could have easily ended in their favor- the final score for the second two periods was 2-1, which is significantly closer than 6-2.
It’s important to finish a game strong- Pittsburgh, Columbus, and San Jose learned that the hard way during the Stanley Cup Playoffs this past spring- but the entire tone of the game can easily be set in the first fifteen or twenty minutes. The Arizona Coyotes simply cannot afford to start off games like they did Thursday night.