Tough road trip continues with heavy loss for Arizona Coyotes
By James Reeve
A difficult four-game road trip continued with the Arizona Coyotes losing 4-0 to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.
The Coyotes began their road trip in Philadelphia earlier this week, dropping a 4-2 lead before losing the game 5-4 in overtime.
This game was followed by a heavy beating by the Penguins, who snapped a five-game losing streak.
Once again, the Arizona Coyotes have been out-shooting their opponents and have shown plenty of flashes of true talent, but they weren’t able to solve goaltender Casey DeSmith.
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The Coyotes did, however, continue to have great success with their penalty killing unit – improving their success rate to 91.5% across the season, almost 4% higher than the second-best unit in the league, the San Jose Sharks.
Losing Antti Raanta and Alex Goligoski ahead of the Flyers and Penguins games respectively has had a big impact on the team, taking away two key pieces to the team’s defensive efforts.
Darcy Kuemper, playing his third consecutive game for the team, has now allowed 14 goals in just three games and will need better help from his defencemen if he hopes of tightening things up ahead of playing the Washington Capitals.
The team’s road trip ends when the Coyotes head to Detroit to face a Red Wings team in a similar position to them in the league.
The Red Wings are likely candidates to be targeting the lowest-possible finish in hopes of landing the coveted first overall pick in the 2019 draft – a pick that will land the team Jack Hughes.
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The Wings are likely to be the ‘easiest’ of the four road games, with a tilt against the reigning Stanley Cup Champions coming beforehand, but the Coyotes can’t take anything for granted with results starting to slip.
It wasn’t too long ago that Rick Tocchet’s team were storming the league, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-1 and the Ottawa Senators 5-1, so there is no reason to be concerned with recent results as long as the Coyotes continue to put up big numbers in shots and penalty kills.
The return of Raanta, Goligoski and Jakob Chychrun will be a huge boost for the Arizona Coyotes and things will turn around before you know it.
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What do you think Coyotes fans? Will the team turn things around quickly? How will they do against the Capitals and Red Wings? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!