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Arizona Coyotes Power Play – Short Handed Goals Woes

By William Grigsby

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In this young season, there are some concerns about a couple of statistics.

Through six games the Arizona Coyotes have only three power play goals out of 29 attempts, putting them at a paltry 10.34 percent success rate. Their penalty kill, on the other hand is much better at 84 percent.

Of course they did get one in the New Jersey game, and it was the “Dynamic Duo” again of Domi and Duclair who scored. Domi fed Duclair a perfect pass (how does he keep doing that?) and he sped around the defenders, pulled goalie Schneider out of position and buried the goal in the net.

Watch it here:

The worrisome statistic which will blow your mind, is that the Arizona Coyotes have given up FOUR short-handed goals in just six games! Wait… it gets better. Last season, (you know the worst season on record for the team) they only gave up eight short-handed goals in 82 games.

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There’s got to be an explanation, right? Part of it is due to the experiment the coaches are trying out with Mikkel Boedker on the point for the power play. Not only has it not produced much power for the power play, it has left the team vulnerable to short-handed goals against them. Due to the fact that Boedker is not used to defending in that position, he is invariably out of position to get back when the opposing team attacks, while minus a player.

Of course we cannot put all the blame on Boedker. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is also on the power play unit on the opposite side. OEL, like Boedker have not really put it into after burners so far this season. The Arizona Coyotes have more weapons this season with Domi, Duclair, Hanzal, and Rieder playing an outstanding offensive game, so perhaps OEL can concentrate more on defense this year.

One other area the team needs to work on is the 3-on-3 play used in overtime games. Since this new rule has taken effect, the lone game which has gone to overtime lasted a whole 43 seconds before the New Jersey Devils won it.

OEL was on the ice, as was Hanzal and Domi when that O/T goal was scored. Hanzal got cross-checked in the back in his own zone, leading to the turnover resulting in the game winner. The 3-on-3 is an exciting new rule, but the teams have not had adequate time to practice coverage, or line changes, etc.

On this winning goal, Max Domi could not get over in time to prevent a rink wide pass from getting through to Larsson, who had a gimme easy goal. With all that open ice, the correct play there might have been to dive across to prevent the pass to the eventual goal scorer. Easier said than done. 

The Arizona Coyotes were just lucky to even get a point out of the game, since they were terrible in taking shots on goal early in the game. It required you to rub your eyes to see if they were working when the graphic on the TV screen showed ONE shot on goal, with very little time left in the initial period. They ended up just having 20 shots on goal, with Cory Schneider stopping 18 of them.

Still and all, the Arizona Coyotes are doing alright by at least receiving one point so far on the long five game road trip. Let’s hope they can ascertain how to improve the power play, and defend  better against those back stabbing short handed goals.

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