The Coyotes are 5-13 in their last 18 games, covering about five weeks. It's been a rough go and the Playoffs are now a pipe dream as they are the same amount of points behind the Sharks as they are in front of the Oilers for last place.
The next four days should see Boedker traded, and maybe some other guys too, though I'd be curious to see who anyone else would even want. Barring some kind of blockbuster, you'd doubt Hanzal, Murphy,Stone, OEL, Domi or Duclair would be going anywhere. Hardly anyone else is even an NHL quality player, so what the Coyotes do at the deadline is likely not going to be all too interesting.
However, you never know. The Coyotes are in the midst of a rebuild and it would make sense to move some of their excess of forward prospects for players who are already in the NHL or who are defensemen. You can't hope to have a team with nothing but twenty year olds, so some mid-twenties additions are most necessary.
The Core:
Going forward, the Coyotes have Duclair, Domi, Hanzal,Reider, Murphy, Stone and OEL on their current roster. That's half a defense core and one forward line, plus a guy.
Let's give Domingue the benefit of the doubt and pencil him in as the teams starter going forward.
That leaves three defensemen - Dahlbeck, Tinordi and Connauton are not cutting it and never will- and nine forwards. The team has Strome who is a guarantee to be in the NHL next season.
But after that:Christian Dvorak, Brandon Perlini, Christian Fischer, Nick Merkley, Ryan MacInnis, Maxim Letunov, are prospects who - while a nice cache - should probably be converted into more useful currency.
I say this because with Domi, Duclair and Strome, you're already at 3 rookie/sophmore forwards for next season. How many rookie forwards can you break in at once?
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Tonight's game is against the Panthers, in Florida, and according to Sarah McLellan, here are the lines:
As you can see, the "first" line is one of the worst third lines in the NHL. Vermette is just absolutely awful. Let's not even try to sugarcoat it. He has 3 ES goals in almost 60 games, a 46% CF rating and has taken 12 more penalties than he has drawn. Also, -56 scoring chance differential, -60 shot differential.....he is brutal.
Boedker is.......Boedker. A player with so much talent and promise who is not very good. This "sniper" has 6 ES goals and a 45% CF. He has 13 goals, but six of them game in two games against the league's worst defensive team, the Senators. He is what you call a BUST. If Maloney can recoup a second rounder for him, then that is a steal.
The other member of this line is Domi, which means Tippett is wasting one of his best players on a bad line. Worse, is that while Duclair might actually help this line maintain possession, Domi does not seem to be a very good possession driver. Even though he plays amazing with Duclair and the stats back this up, here he is on a line that isn't going to help the Coyotes.
Anyways, the game should be fun, as Barkov will be back and seeing Ekblad play is always fun.
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