Arizona Coyotes Outshooting Opponents

Arizona Coyotes are… taking more shots on goal?

The Arizona Coyotes beat the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens last week, dropping games to the Ottawa Senators in regulation and the Philadelphia Flyers in the OT shootout to go a more than respectable 2-1-1 last week.

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(We’ll ignore the 7-2 score in the team’s one regulation loss.)

Two of the teams the Coyotes played have been struggling this season (the Philadelphia Flyers are just one more Steve Mason injury away from shooting themselves out of the Columbus cannon and to the front of the Connor McDavid sweepstakes, while the Toronto Maple Leafs are leaf-ing harder than any team in the history of Toronto), but one is in fourth in the league and the other is actually the second-likeliest team of those four to make the playoffs. As such, we all bow until the skin on our noses scrapes off on the concrete at Louis Domingue’s feet.

Here are your three stars for last week’s game play:

First Star: Coyotes SOG count

I’m still trying to work my brain around it, but he Arizona Coyotes outshot all four of their opponents this past week by a fairly massive margin — and they earned five of a possible eight points. It’s amazing how that works!

Tobias Rieder taking six SOG in a single game didn’t shock me much. Lauri Korpikoski shooting frequently enough to score two goals in the same game did. It was a weird and kind of magical thing.

By far, though, the Coyotes’ shot chart against the Montreal Canadiens sort of sums up their entire week:

courtesy of war-on-ice.com

Second Star: Louis Domingue

It really sucks, as a goalie, to be thrown into a game when the starter has more or less ruined your chance at earning a win for the team — and when that’s your first time stepping on the ice for an NHL game? That sucks even more.

Not only was he tossed into the game for the final period of a matchup that saw Mike Smith allow four goals in under five minutes, though, but he was expected to start the next game in Montreal — and he came through like no one dared hope he could.

Although he only faced twenty shots over the course of the game, Domingue’s real talent came when he managed to shake off two goals — both by Alex Galchenyuk — in the first five minutes of the game. It’s easy, as a goaltender, to let something like that rattle you to the point where your game collapses; Domingue held strong, though, and brought the Coyotes their second win in three games.

At 22, Domingue probably isn’t ready to be an NHL-caliber number one starter… but with nearly a full season of AHL play under his belt (and a rapidly improving game, good positioning, and fiery attitude), using the Quebec native as Mike Smith’s heavily-relied-upon backup for the remainder of the season is far from a bad idea.

Third Star: Don Maloney

Thomas Drance over at the Nation Network made a pretty telling joke about Don Maloney’s face when he watched Mike Smith’s five goals against in essentially the first forty minutes of game play on Saturday:

"It’s like Don Maloney only just realized this weekend how bad Mike Smith’s contract is. The rest of us reacted this way the day Smith signed his extension:"

It’s not like any of us really blame him, and at least he’s showing that he understands what the biggest problem on this team is (at least, moving forward).

The Coyotes clearly need to start looking at making roster moves before the trade deadline, but it’s also time to start facing facts — if the Coyotes want to be competitive in the next two or three seasons, they need to address the Mike Smith situation.

Buying him out should be a last-case scenario, but teams have waived players worth more money — literally, the Los Angeles Kings did it with Mike Richards just last week. After next season, Mike Smith’s NMC terminates, and a no-trade clause will kick in.

Even if he didn’t have a NTC, he’s worth a little bit too much for most teams to consider picking him up — but if Mark Visentin and Louis Domingue are both good enough to split the net (or if even one of them is good enough to play as a solid starter), the team can afford to bring on another goaltender with the salaries both Visentin and Domingue have. Waiving Mike Smith won’t be ideal, but sitting him more frequently probably is — the Coyotes actually can’t get worse than the Buffalo Sabres, and the Edmonton Oilers are still probably farther away from being competitive than the Coyotes. Moving up a bit in the standings can’t hurt too much, and playing a good goaltender will renew not only the fans’ spirits, but will increase the trade values for players the Coyotes want to move.

Think about it, Maloney. If you aren’t already, that is.

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