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Phoenix Wins in Home Opener 4-1 |
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The Phoenix Coyotes win their home opener 4-1 against the New York Rangers. It’s always nice to get a win on opening night and it’s always nice to see at least in the short term some of ones fears alleviated. There was a lot of worry about how this team will score…outsiders guffawing about Radim Vrbata and his amazing play these past two seasons seemed to expect him to fall into obscurity, as well as the consistency of Mike Smith especially under the weight of his new massive contract and his chance to play for Canada. Overall I thought it was a pretty good game though sloppy at times…something I’ve noticed about the other NHL games I’ve seen so far, there’s still that air of pre-season going around it seems to me. The game was relatively close and hard fought until the third period, during that time the Rangers were really hard pressed to get out of their zone and the Coyotes really drove the play to them.
Some Thoughts :
Martin Hanzal and Radim Vrbata forming the Czech connection as they have these past three seasons is still a very strong 2nd line connection. I had just read an article where the Coyotes were pegged as bottom feeders due to their lack of scoring and that Vrbata was a nice story but he would never hit 25 goals again…well that’s as may be, but he certainly looks like he wants 30 again. Vrbata’s natural hat-trick was his first hat-trick since…well last season’s season ending game against the Ducks, an auspicious start to be sure. Hanzal was excellent, he’s been looking ready to bust out for a while yet continuous small injuries always seem to stop him…hopefully he can stay healthy. He was excellent on the draw something he really needs to pick up with Gordon gone and Ribeiro being brutal as a foregone conclusion. He was throwing some big hits and being a nuisance in front of the net...and yes you could easily have seen that as goaltender interference on the second Coyotes goal as Lundqvist was down and out just outside his crease with Hanzal standing practically on top of him. The one issue which is admittedly a small one is that I still feel that hole in the second line, I love Korpikoski…but I’m just not feeling him beside Hanzal-Vrbata. They need a better option, I just don’t know who or how they’ll manage that. As an aside Korpi it seems will see extremely limited PP time as Vermette is out there with Hanzal-Vrbata.
Also fun to see two massive power forwards that...well...fight like geese go at it. It was a massive hit on Stepan made worse by the disparaging height differential. I'd call it a draw because both seemed worn out from long shifts and neither really did much.
OEL was great again at both ends of the ice. I found that this experiment of OEL-Rundblad on the PP looks pretty sharp and gives another dynamic…wish Rundblad would shoot more but you can see his creativity and passing skills out there. That first unit of Boedker-Ribeiro-Doan-OEL-Rundblad was pretty dangerous despite not getting on the scoreboard. I do wonder if they will keep that going as Yandle is still the superior player to Rundblad as well as making the big bucks…I mean he did lead the entire team in points last season…so can they afford to keep him on the second unit the whole time? He’s great at 5vs5, but limiting his PP time just limits his ice-time.
Mike Smith had a very good game in my opinion. He made two highlight reel saves (One in the first period and one on a breakaway in the third off J.T. Miller) and was generally strong in his net. Without a big year from him this team is not going far and I hate to say that they have all their eggs in one basket, but Greiss historically can’t handle more than 15 or so games and unlike some other teams with young netminder’s waiting in the system the Coyotes hopes for the future in net are still too young (Visentin 21, Lee 22). He made 23 stops on 24 shots and was named the second star of the night.
Nice to see Chipchura and that fourth line with Klinkhammer and Brown get a goal. Some really strong forechecking by Klinkhammer pretty much led to it. Chipchura has a knack for scoring random big goals and this one was pretty big. The more important part to his game though was his face-offs, Chipchura has been hovering around 48% his whole brief career in the NHL and like Hanzal he needs to step that part of his game up now that one of the best face-off men in the game is gone and one of the worst is replacing him (sorry Ribeiro but you’re brutal on the draw). He was 67% even though he only took 4 draws…still…improvement?! In the end I guess it isn’t too big of a deal when you have Vermette taking the vast majority of the defensive zone face-offs, and he’s one of the best in the game. Speaking of Brown, he fought Derek Dorsett in his first ever NHL fight.
He was given the instigator as he went after Dorsett for what he felt was a deliberate trip on Smith. It was a pretty meh scrap all things considered and you have to give Dorsett the victory, Brown had one good shot then bring in the cuddle-mode. Obviously in the heat of the moment you see your goalie fall down and a guy underneath him you assume some foul play, but on the replay it obviously was unintentional.
The first line was held off the scoreboard which was a bit disappointing especially because they seemed to play half the game. That doesn’t mean they played poorly because they didn’t, they had a few good looks on the PP and OEL sprang Doan in for a partial breakaway after a turnover created by Boedker that was fairly hilarious because of how slow Doan was leading to a slap shot instead of taking it to the net. If Ribeiro could win a draw this would probably be a more lethal unit on offensive zone starts, though they did look good off the rush.
All in all it was a pretty good game and I was very intrigued to see how the new look Rangers would play under Vigneault. I did notice that they were trying for more of a transition game than they had under Torts, though it’s still too early to be finding specific differences…outside of maybe not collapsing three men deep on the penalty kill. Missing their captain Ryan Callahan obviously hurts, as well as speedster Carl Hagelin, though I’m sure most Rangers fans won’t wave excuses, they want results and big things are expected from this team.
Thanks for reading. The Coyotes play next on Saturday against their long-time rivals the Sharks in their first away game.
Lastly congratulations to my favourite player from the 2013 draft Aleksander Barkov who became the youngest player to score an NHL goal since the expansion of 1967. Panthers fans, you'll love him I swear.
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