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Tippett's Line Combos Doing No Favors to Losing Team

October 26, 2016, 11:04 AM ET [21 Comments]
James Tanner
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The Coyotes lost again last night, 5-3 to the Devils, moving them to 0-5 on their current road trip and 1-5-0 on the year.

While wins are not exactly the point of this season, the Coyotes have shown (in the Ranger game) that they can use their speed and skill to great advantage. Last night, they showed that they can still be a tentative, sloppy, inexperienced group as well.

The Devils controlled 55% of the play and were clearly the team deserving of the victory. No fault to third stringer Justin Peters, as he's the third stinger and (despite a bad goal or two) it would have taken a stellar net-minding performance to win last night's game.



I think, however, that it is too easy and convenient to blame the 1-5 league-worst record on experience or goaltending. The Coyotes have tons of skill, but the bottom half of their lineup is still made up of players who wouldn't make better teams, and the coach has been making some curious line-up decisions, to say the least.

And, while you can look to Smith's injury and say the Coyotes are being screwed by bad injury luck to their starter, I think that line of reasoning makes Smith seem better than he is.

The Coyotes are a 48% possession team (adjusted for score) and have the third lowest expected goals-for in the league. So while goal-tending has been generally bad, the team would need a Dominick Hasek instead of a Mike Smith if they wanted to compete.

I know people get mad when you criticize Dave Tippitt, but he is making some extremely poor line-up decisions, in my opinion. I continue to wonder if he's the right choice for Chayka's vision and a rebuilding team. Maybe he is, I'm not saying he isn't.

Take, for example, the fact that last night Michael Stone and Alex Goligoski skated 2 minutes more than OEL and Murphy.

Here's a laundry list of things I either don't like or think they should try:

- The only Coyotes defenseman that plays the right side and is above 50% CF on the year is Luke Schenn. Since Connor Murphy drags down OEL, I say play Schenn and OEL as your top pairing. Schenn has untapped offensive abilities and while he's generally regarded as a bad player, I don't think it's a stretch to say he could be at least as good as Stone or Murphy.

- Note that last night, Michael Stone was 39% CF, Connor Murphy was 33% and Luke Schenn was 65%.



- Radem Vrbata is not a first line player. That is inanity. Not only is he not a first liner, but the team is rebuilding so why are they giving prime minutes to a guy who is actually Jarimor Jagr's step-dad?

Vrbata is the kind of player you're proud to display on your third line. He's a solid asset and a great player. But having him take minutes from the likes of Duclair is ridiculous.

- Last night, the second line was Richardson, Doan, Rieder - an excellent fourth line, an OK third line and that's it. None of those players, barring an emergency, should see second line minutes.

- All the lines last night were bad.

The first line had Vrbata instead of Duclair, who ended up on the third line with McGinn and Martinhook. That's surely going to get him going FFS.

The fourth line was Dvorak, Lawson Crouse (needs to go back to junior) and Ryan White.

- Duclair played ten minutes last night. Dvorak less. Strome and Dauphin were scratched. Strome has played three games so far, which is ridiculous.

- In the six games so far, Vrbata has played more on the Power Play than Domi or Duclair.

- Hanzal is the most used forward and Doan has over 13 PP minutes.



- In fact I'd say the biggest detriment to having Doan on this team is the obligation to actually play him a lot. He's still pretty good, don't get me wrong. It's just, the kids need to play.

Here's the line-up I'd ice

Duclair - Hanzal - Domi
Dvorak - Strome - Vrbata
Rieder - Dauphin - Doan
Martinhook - Richardson - White

OEL - Schenn
Goligoski - Murphy
Chychrun - Stone.

It might not even be better for the short term. The point though, is that the team can't do any worse than it's doing, so play the kids.

Thoughts?

* all stats Corsica.hockey and stats.hockeyanalysis.com
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