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Coyotes off to 0-4 Start but I've got yer spin and excuses

October 13, 2017, 10:58 AM ET [53 Comments]
James Tanner
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The Coyotes are oh and four, the injuries are stacking up and their top prospect is in the AHL.

Classic Coyotes.

If you had of told me that the Coyotes and Sabres would be the last two winless teams, I would have thought you're crazy. Next thing you know, you'd be complaining about Bettman, fretting another lockout and doubting the NHL's determination to continue a penalty crackdown into the important part of a season.

So you would have not batted an eye. Me, however, I thought for sure the Coyotes would come out flying. But I once thought Tripping Daisy was going to be huge, that Bernie Sanders would be President and I'm still pretty afraid of Y2K, so basically, don't ever listen to me.

The Coyotes started the year with their prized new goalie injured, then they had to play a tough couple of games against Vegas and then last night Raanta got injured again. (No word other than the annoying ubiquitous lower body injury, which for now on, we have all agreed to assume means an injury to the groin and/or weiner area).

In the meantime medium-prized sophomore Brandon Perlini seems to have broken his hand (again, I am just guessing here, if the NHL doesn't care about accuracy, I'm not sure why I should), and Dylan Strome got sent to the minors.

However, this stuff will work itself out. The Coyotes, once they get a consistent lineup, a healthy goalie and some luck, they'll be fine. I still think they're going to be a really good team.

Don't forget, eventually they'll bolster the roster that played last night with Strome, Chychrun and Perlini, and that's a huge upgrade.

Also, they played well last night. Louis Domingue let in a couple of duds, and a shorty to lose the game is always unfortunate, but they were the better team, and if Raanta doesn't go down, it's a certain victory.

They dominated the first and third periods and were the better team. They would win the opener against Anaheim where they blew a three goal lead about 95% of the time, and you have to give them a pass for at least the Vegas home opener, for obvious emotional reasons. The other game they lost in OT.

So with basically doing nothing different, you can see how the Coyotes could easily be 3-1 instead of 0-3-1. This doesn't count in reality, but if you're looking for a reason to hold onto your early season optimism, I think the fact that they are basically a coinflip away from being 3-1, when you consider all the injuries and stuff, is reason enough to still feel good.


And if, at any time, hockey is making you feel bad, then take a timeout. It's just a game.

One last thing to mention: Tocchet has to do something about the line of Richardson, Reider and Martinook. It was brutal last night. They had a 25% CF and were just all-round dominated. For the year, Reider is 40% and Richardson is 45%. These are guys who 'play the game the right way' but they also 'suck at NHL level hockey' so the Coyotes really need to do something about them because they're giving way too much ice time to highly ineffective players.

On the brightside, through four games, the line of Keller, Domi and Stepan is one of the best in the NHL. They're rocking about a 53% possession rating while scoring nearly every game. Keller had two last night and if he was even halfway lucky would have had three or four.

The Richardson line was played as the third line last night, while an actual effective line of Kempe, Duclair and Crouse was on the fourth line.

A tip for the new coach: If you give more ice time to Brad Richardson than you give to Christian Dvorak, you're not going to win many games. That's just terrible ice-time allotment.

All right that's enough from me: you just got blogged!




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