Arizona Coyotes Thwarted By San Jose Sharks, Lose 3-1
The Arizona Coyotes were on a three game losing streak heading into Thursday night’s matchup against San Jose. The game had big implications in the Pacific Division, with second place on the line and the season nearing do or die time. The Coyotes fell behind early and never recovered.
Final. 1. 121. 3. 120
The Arizona Coyotes are in the the throes of a four game losing streak. Nothing seems to be going right beyond the play of Louis Domingue.
The offense is sputtering and the Coyotes continued their disturbing trend of giving up an early lead.
Tommy Wingels scored a flukey goal just 6:23 into the first period. Three minutes later Chris Tierney was the beneficiary of Melker Karlsson crashing the net as he took advantage of a loose puck and put it home past Domingue.
The Sharks led 2-0 before the first period was halfway complete.
got one back in the third period after a nice pass from
, however it was once again too little too late.
A late penalty call on Oliver Ekman-Larsson all but sealed the deal, and Patrick Marleau put the final nail in the coffin with an empty net goal.
San Jose Sharks win 3-1.
Player Performance
It was not the best game of the season for Martin Hanzal. Bad passes abound, and it seemed like any time he got near a scoring chance the puck was just repelled from wherever he wanted it to be.
Anthony Duclair showed some physicality early, and he and Max Domi had some good shifts late once they were put on the ice together. Beyond that, both of the young stars were relatively quiet.
Louis Domingue was the recipient of two early fluke goals. Whether you fall on the side of his fault or the team’s fault, the bottom line is the kid buckled down and shut the Sharks out the rest of the way. His team just didn’t latch on with the same mentality.
Nicklas Grossmann and Michael Stone were on the ice for both goals against, and it looked like Gross in particular was struggling out there tonight.
Mikkel Boedker is now a minus-17 on the season. Plus/minus is an outdated stat for the most part, but when you’re significantly farther down the list than anyone else on the team (the next closest is Antoine Vermette at minus-10), there might be a problem with your game.
Arizona Coyotes Player of the Game
Shane Doan was honored tonight for breaking the franchise goal-scoring record. He notched an assist to move a little closer to the franchise points record as well.
It’s a shame that on a great night for the captain the majority of the team were either going through the motions or completely stinking up the joint.
The View From The 200 Level
The Arizona Coyotes are in a rut and they’d be hard pressed to have this struggle at a less optimal time.
They held a four point lead on the San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks a week ago, and now they find themselves two points back of both teams and out of a playoff spot again for the first time in a while.
Unfortunately, there are no easy targets to blame this time. Special teams weren’t the issue on Thursday night as there were few penalties to be had.
Instead, the issue is simply an inability to gain the offensive zone and then maintain pressure once in it.
Despite being down 2-0 for the vast majority of the game, the Coyotes were still out shot and out attempted by the Sharks until the very bitter end. That is simply unacceptable.
As a team, they have to respond to these deficits and pile on the pressure. The saying always goes that “there is no lead more precarious than an early two goal lead” because the frontrunning team often sits back on it’s heels.
Despite San Jose backing off the throttle, the Arizona Coyotes could not generate any kind of offensive presence outside of a few short bursts.
Next: Coyotes Prospect Report: Perlini Heating Up, Garland Hits 100 Point Mark
And then there are the terrible starts this team continues to suffer through… Yikes.
They can’t keep digging themselves these same holes and expect to climb out of them while shooting the puck on net just 24 times in a night when they were the trailing team for more than 50 minutes. It’s not a feasible path to victory, and the few they get from it are totally unreliable.
The Arizona Coyotes face the LA Kings on Saturday night at Gila River Arena to conclude their homestand.