Arizona Coyotes a Mixed Bag of Pros and Cons in Blues Game 1

The Arizona Coyotes’ first game in Enterprise Arena against the hometown Blues had its share of highs and lows.

Even though Arizona Coyotes forwards Lawson Crouse and Christian Fischer were injured and unable to play on Tuesday night, the Desert Dogs weathered the storm against the St. Louis Blues in the first period with the help of newcomers John Hayden and Dryden Hunt. Truth be told, it was in fact the Blues that weathered the Coyotes offensive onslaught early on. The Coyotes opened with an aggressive but disciplined style, and at the 10 minute mark of the first period led in shots 10 to 1. Their 11th shot resulted in a nice goal by Christian Dvorak from a sweet feed from Tyler Pitlick. Drake Caggiula got a secondary assist.

There were two sloppy penalties committed by the Coyotes in the first frame, but they survived both of them. Clayton Keller was caught interfering with a defenseman behind the Blues goal, basically setting a pick, and Jordan Oesterle earned himself a delay of game penalty when he flipped the puck over the plexiglass.

Late in the first period the Blues settled down and gained their composure, and the wheels began to fall off for the Desert Dogs. With less than 4 minutes remaining, defenseman Alex Goligoski blew a tire near his own blue line and fell, allowing the Blues’ Mike Hoffman to skate unmolested toward Darcy Kuemper and fire a left-handed bullet past the Yotes’ netminder to tie the game at 1 – an unfortunate situation that gave some momentum to the home team.

At 3:54 of the second period, Justin Faulk made some nifty moves to beat Darcy Kuemper directly in front of the goal and the Blues went up 2 to 1. At 6:25 of the period, Nick Schmaltz rifled a “shot pass” to Christian Dvorak, who sent his blazer past Blues goalie Jordan Binnington before “Dvo” himself crashed head-first into the net. Tie game! At 11:45 of the period, however, Vince Dunn was left uncovered and shot a blast past Kuemper to make it 3 to 2 at the end of the period.

At 31 seconds of the third period, Drake Caggiula got a 4-minute high-sticking penalty, and at 1:44 the Blues scored a power play goal by Captain Ryan O’Reilly. The score stayed the same until late in the game, when the Coyotes pulled goalkeeper Darcy Kuemper and Nick Schmaltz scored 6 on 5 to cut the lead to 4 to 3. The Desert Dogs couldn’t tie the game at the end, and the Blues got the two points.

So what do we make of the overall performance of the Coyotes against the St. Louis Blues? The first ten minutes were impressive indeed, and the Blues had only 1 shot to the Coyotes 10, yet the home team tied the game prior to the end of the first period. The Coyotes didn’t help themselves by committing sloppy penalties and, even though St. Louis’s power play was basically ineffective, the Yotes goal scorers were kept isolated on the bench while the penalty killing unit/s were on the ice.

There were also defensive lapses that cost the Coyotes dearly. Although the “D” corps was missing a couple of key pieces, that’s not necessarily an excuse for poor play against a veteran team like St. Louis. A couple of their goals were basically opportunistic gifts. On the offensive side, the Coyotes had some great opportunities to score in each period but pucks didn’t find the net and there wasn’t a lot of net-front presence as the game wore on.

Let’s see how the Arizona Coyotes react to Tuesday night’s loss on Thursday. There’s cause for hope and cause for concern.