Arizona Coyotes: Canucks Matchup A Pivotal One For Ailing Coyotes
With a 2-6-2 record in their last 10 games, the Arizona Coyotes must get off to a good start tonight in order to keep their playoff hopes alive.
The Arizona Coyotes are now five points back of a playoff berth after their five day sabbatical.
To add insult to injury, the Vancouver Canucks are now tied with the Yotes at 54 points for 4th in the Pacific. The degree of difficulty seems to be increasing at every turn.
If Louis Domingue comes out and showcases a return to his January form, the Coyotes need to provide him the support they’ve all too often failed to show of late.
It’s cliche but the Yotes simply need to start putting together complete games.
One night the offense is hot and the goalie is a sieve. The next finds the goalie stopping nearly everything and the Arizona Coyotes unable to score. Nearly every night features gif-worthy mental lapses on special teams that lead to highlights for their opponents.
Odds are Dave Tippett put a premium on special teams play in the team’s practices this week. It’s time to translate theory into reality.
Now for today’s links:
Coyotes Talk
The Coyotes of late have looked an awful lot like the Arizona Coyotes we saw in the preseason. Brendan Porter of Five For Howling writes that the Yotes are finally playing like we expected and provides the reasons behind the decline…including the fact that “Arizona’s 46.6 5v5 Corsi Percentage is somehow a full two percentage points worse than last year’s brutal campaign.” Yikes.
With a myriad of issues the team is beginning to sink in the standings. Sarah Hall from Along the Boards notes that “the Coyotes have a very young defensive core, with six of their eight defensemen under the age of 25” and that their growing pains play no small part in the issues we have seen down the stretch this season.
AZCentral’s Sarah McLellan explored the Coyotes’ depth on the blueline and how the team was handling it. If the Arizona Coyotes fall out of playoff contention, I’m hopeful we’ll see these new young D-men taking game reps from the veterans in order to establish their worth or lack thereof heading into next season.
Shane Doan has 19 goals already and sits one point shy of tying the franchise scoring record. Head coach Dave Tippett believes the return to form is because of Doan’s unwavering work ethic. Doan himself doesn’t disagree according to a recent article by Sarah McLellan. “It didn’t really matter if we scored or we didn’t,” Doan recalled. “We just did the same things, and I think it taught me a lot that year. No matter what – if you score, if you don’t score – it shouldn’t dictate if you had a good game or not.”
Around The NHL
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Joel Quenneville walked out of his post game presser after another overturned goal call. I’m unsure if he was angry at the call or if he’s angry at the system, but before he blows another gasket perhaps he should look around the league. Virtually every team has had goals taken away at this point. It’s not so bad Coach Q.
Icethetics gathered the four logos from the four NHL teams celebrating their 50th anniversary next season. Despite the rivalry I dig the Kings’ 50th logo. That St. Louis Blues effort is nice and elegant as well.
This guy named Sidney Crosby started putting the puck in the net again. He’s scored 7 goals and 8 assists over the past eight games. After writing about him and his team for a bit, it was pretty evident that the system implemented by former Arizona Coyotes forward Mike Sullivan was going to pay dividends on the star forward front for the Penguins.
And in other desert related hockey news, Bill Foley is getting a little nervous while waiting for the NHL to expand to Las Vegas.