Oliver Ekman-Larsson Is An All Star, the Coyotes Are Not
Coyotes win, Oliver Ekman-Larsson is an All Star, and other fun tidbits
The Arizona Coyotes have this really nasty habit of losing games by stupidly large margins, then coming back the next game and blowing the opposition out of the water (usually with the help of Oliver Ekman-Larsson, but we’ll get to him in a bit).
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Last week was no real exception to this rule — for a team that went 2-2-0 over their last four games, the Coyotes finished the week with a goal differential of -4.
Not very typical of a team that won half their games, especially when you consider that the team’s goal differential is a -10 for the year 2015… even though they’ve only played five games.
The diagnosis? This is a team that either goes big or truly goes home — like, in the first period. Let’s take a look at their schedule from last week:
Saturday, January 3rd
Opponent: Columbus Blue Jackets
Final Score: 6-3 (W)
The Coyotes finally found some scorepower — good thing, too, since the team was facing off against a roster Mike Smith made 54 saves against last season. In a single game.
The win was particularly uplifting, as it was the first win under the new official team majority owner. Andrew Barroway and his son, Jake, performed the ceremonial puck drop before what would be the team’s most spirited win of the new year.
The team continued to show that when they want to, the entire roster can play a good game. Secondary scoring for the Arizona Coyotes is unreal — that is, as long as they want it to be. The offense, defense, rookies, veterans… when the Coyotes want to win a game, the entire team contributes fairly evenly.
Once again, this was a week that saw Martin Hanzal and Sam Gagner turn it on when playing together on a line. The issue with this? Hanzal has (once again) gone out with injury — while Gagner has finally discovered the consistency many feared had been robbed of him by too long in Edmonton, he seems to be uncertain about playing consistently when thrown with new linemates.
Tuesday, January 6th
Opponent: St. Louis Blues
Final Score: 6-0 (L)
For whatever reason, the St. Louis Blues have Arizona’s number — with David Backes scoring an embarrassing four goals against the desert dogs at their own arena, this was the second time the Blues have just run the Coyotes’ show for all sixty minutes.
While Arizona seemed to be fine with holding off St. Louis early on, things went rapidly downhill as the team’s offense began to look tired and unenthusiastic.
Martin Hanzal wasn’t present for this game, and many blamed that — plus an injury to Antoine Vermette in the opening minutes of the game that required a handful of stitches and some repatching throughout the game — for the loss.
What the team showed with their second loss in three games, though, was that the team doesn’t have the consistency to win games in rapid succession. For whatever reason, the Coyotes failed to play two consecutive games in which they looked competitive; although they’ve failed to record more than a single consecutive loss since before the Christmas break, they keep losing games by embarrassing margins. It’s becoming unacceptable, particularly for a team that seems to be turning their season around.
Thursday, January 8th
Opponent: Winnipeg Jets
Final Score: 4-1 (W)
Before this particular matchup, I spoke with Travis Hrubeniuk of Arctic Ice Hockey about the Jets; as someone who comes from the Eastern Conference, I haven’t paid particular notice to Winnipeg since Atlanta relocated a few years back.
His biggest concern, naturally, was Ondrej Pavelec:
“For reference, a media member tweeted out these numbers over each goalies last ten starts: Hutch – 6-3-1 – Sv% .930 – shots: 302, vs. Pavelec – 3-3-3 – Sv% .811 – shots: 244. Hutch is calmer, smarter, better positioned, and controls his rebounds better than Pavelec. For some reason there are still loads of very prominent Pavelec apologists in Winnipeg who will point fingers at everybody else if the team loses tonight, but should Arizona win I will almost guarantee Pavelec plays a big role in it.”
His concern was apparently well-founded; combined with the loss of five key defensemen and Evander Kane, there’s little doubt in anyone’s minds that the Jets are struggling. Pavelec doesn’t carry quite the painful cap hit that Mike Smith does, but his $3.9 million AAV until 2017 certainly doesn’t help matters. Winnipeg is struggling with the same conflict Arizona is — play the almost comically cheap (but statistically superior) backup in the majority of games and essentially own a multi-million dollar backup, or lose the majority of your games?
It seems as though the Coyotes once again knew how to turn on their scorepower; normally, it would be almost a foregone conclusion that the team with the more depleted roster will lose, but Coyotes fans have seen the team do some seriously alarming things against certain teams all season.
Once again, the Coyotes won against the team everyone expected them to; they were now 2-2-0 on the 2015 calendar year, with play that was as bipolar and inconsistent as an NCAA team still growing accustomed to playing together. Still grossly unacceptable, but at least the team is winning games.
Saturday, January 10th
Opponent: Ottawa Senators
Final Score: 5-1 (L)
Starting to sound familiar?
The Coyotes finished off their second full week of play in 2015 once again getting blown out by the opposition immediately following a big win.
Curtis Lazar was back in the Senators’ lineup following his gold medal performance at the World Juniors, while the Coyotes received no such returning superstar prospect — but the lack of scoring by Arizona over three periods was once again unacceptable. This was another consecutive Mike Smith start; it might be time for the Coyotes to start alternating goaltenders.
Other News:
-Oliver Ekman-Larsson was named to the All Star Games roster by the NHL on January 10th; he will join Zemgus Girgensons, the five Blackhawks, and a number of other big names around the league in Columbus the weekend of January 24th and 25th. The league’s recognition of Ekman-Larsson as an emerging elite defensive talent was admirable; if anyone is going to win the All Star game in overtime, it’ll probably be the team he’s on.
-The Anaheim Ducks retired Teemu Selanne‘s number (8) and jersey at the Honda Center on Sunday night, in front of a sellout crowd of both Anaheim fans and Winnipeg Jets fans before an exciting comeback win for his former franchise (the one he retired with, that is).
-In the upset of the week, the Edmonton Oilers finally recorded their tenth win of the season — against a tired Chicago Blackhawks roster. They still look like a concerningly bad defensive team, but the Oilers are finally racking up some wins. If they keep this up, they might push themselves out of McDavid territory altogether; with the Buffalo Sabres looking like the Sabres once again and the New Jersey Devils having more trouble than most other teams in the new calendar year, the Oilers could stop being the worst franchise on the planet.
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