Arizona Coyotes vs San Jose Sharks: The Rivalry Begins

Arizona Coyotes jet to the West Coast in first of back-to-back California games

Well, at least the San Jose Sharks are starting Antti Niemi!

The Arizona Coyotes have been doing some things that don’t really make sense so far this season. They’ve won all their in-division games but one, sitting on a 5-1-0 record within the Pacific. They’ve also lost both of their games against the Dallas Stars, gotten shut out by the Carolina Hurricanes, and split a couple season-series with other Eastern Conference franchises that they really should have walked away from with four points overall.

The biggest issue for the Coyotes has been inconsistency — not just from game to game, but from period to period. Mike Smith will stop 20 of 20 shots in the first two periods, then let in three of the seven taken against him in the final twenty minutes; he’s not alone in this, and Dave Tippett (not to mention every Arizona Coyotes fan in existence) is miffed.

On the plus side, the Sharks aren’t doing so hot, either. This team absolutely killed it in the regular season last year, but they’re sitting in fifth — and I mean in the Pacific, not in the league — heading into tonight’s game. A couple of off-season losses (coupled with not a whole lot of off-season acquisitions) and some over-scrutiny by the San Jose community has resulted in an inconsistent start for this California team, as well.

Oct 3, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; San Jose Sharks defenseman Brent Burns (88) checks Arizona Coyotes center Jeff Halpern (14) during the third period at Gila River Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

Details for Saturday night’s game:

DATE: Saturday, November 22nd
TIME: 7:30 P.M. (PST)
LOCATION: San Jose, California
ARENA: SAP Center at San Jose
TV INFO: Fox Sports AZ, CSCA

Keys to Victory

The Coyotes didn’t run lines in practice Saturday morning, so we don’t know who’s skating with who — and we don’t know who’s being scratched.

Live Feed

Puck Prose

It’s hard to tell what the Coyotes should do in order to pull off a win when the only true confirmation about the on-ice roster is that Devan Dubnyk is starting in net; that shouldn’t be the case, but there’s only so much the Coyotes can change in that regard until they make a roster move.

The main key tonight will have to be consistency from start to finish. The Coyotes didn’t look fantastic in the first two periods against the Stars, but they certainly looked better than Dallas — and then they stopped putting in effort at the final puck drop, allowing the Stars to bring home their second win on home ice this season. 

Seriously — a team that can throttle the Vancouver Canucks and push teams like Washington, Nashville, and Anaheim into overtime should never be allowing three unanswered goals in the final period, particularly when that team’s star player is having one of the most off nights of his entire season (yes, Tyler Seguin, we’re looking at you).

The Coyotes can rely on the lack of Jason Demers to do some damage to the Sharks’ blue line (seriously, still not sure why they did that), but they need to turn on the offensive firepower to get a win. Martin Hanzal was unlikely to play tonight after the morning skate — he’s a game time decision, but that decision is kind of looking like a no — so Tobias Rieder, Mikkel Boedker, and Sam Gagner will need to be both fast and physical.

Also, Antoine Vermette needs to do something. Anything. Literally, anything.

Predictions

I think this one is going to go into overtime, just because both of these teams have looked pretty miserable this week. Just for giggles, I’ll predict the Coyotes to come out on top.