The Arizona Coyotes Power Play is embarrassing
By Jim Lynch
If I gave the Arizona Coyotes 10 power plays I do not know if they would score on a single one of them, and that is just not a recipe for success.
Last night against the Anaheim Ducks the Coyotes were given plenty of chances. The Coyotes had 5 power plays last night, and failed to score a single goal on the PP, in fact, they actually did the exact opposite.
There are not many worse things than not scoring on the power play. The only thing that does come to mind to me is giving up a goal on the power play. Shorthanded goals kill a team’s momentum and just change the entire dynamic of a game.
Scoring a goal shorthanded gives the team that scored it the mentality that no matter what they do they are going to find a way to score and win. A winning mentality is half the battle, and the Coyotes have not had it recently.
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To be fair, it is hard to score goals when you can’t get the puck past the blue line. Arizona iced the puck on the PP once last night, and if that doesn’t tell you what is going on with this team I don’t know what will.
The Coyotes are a team that is trying to compete for a playoff spot. If they plan to make a push for the playoffs they need to start actually winning games the right way, and that starts with the special teams. Remember the Vegas/San Jose game 7 last year in the playoffs? Having a good power play can make all the difference.
The Coyotes are not going to magically become great on the man advantage, rather I think they need to take it one day at a time and focus more on it during practice. It is all about setting up a structure. As frustrated I am with Phil Kessel and Taylor Hall that this team can’t find the back of the net on the power play it is not their fault.
The coaching staff, led by Rick Tocchet need to figure out how to get this team’s power-play all on the same page. Maybe it is all about them playing below the red line on the PP, or maybe they just need to start shooting more. All I do know is this is not working right now.