The NHL has seen four coaching changes so far this year, and none of them were Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet.
The Coyotes play a boring game, they prioritize grinders over skill, Tocchet can't manage ice-time properly and he's already cost the team Anthony Duclair while being well on his way to costing them Dylan Strome.
In exchange for these negatives, he's led an injury plagued team to a 9-9-2 record. .500 ain't bad until you realize that only seven teams in the league aren't .500 because of the stupid way the NHL rewards standings points. The Coyotes have four teams below them in the overall standings, and are only five points out of the basement.
Also, the way the Coyotes are winning (extremely good PK and tons of short-handed goals) isn't exactly sustainable.
The Coyotes will go as far as their goaltending takes them. They can't score, they don't have the players to score more than they do, and as long as their coach does things like give Brad Richardson more ice time than pretty much everyone not on the first line.
Dylan Strome's on-ice shooting percentage (i.e the S% of every player he's been on the ice with) was 3% the last time I checked. Considering he plays most of his minutes with useless grinders and guys who shouldn't be in the NHL (Cousins and Crouse) it's pretty stupid to knock a player who's entire value is offensive for providing no offense.
I picked the Coyotes to make the playoffs, largely because I thought Strome would break out and along with Galchenyuk provide enough offense that their excellent blue line and allstar goalie would get it done.
But even then, it was always going to be a coin-flip.
The Coyotes are 25% through the season and they're four points out with a couple games in hand. The could grind their way to the playoffs. But given their injury situation, their lack of offense and their coach, this seems unlikely.
You don't win in the NHL without a true franchise player. You don't get one of those without winning the lottery. It wouldn't be the worst idea to try and do that.
Or, at the very least, to prioritize player development over grinding your way to eight and a first round beatdown at the hands of the Jets or Predators.
Giving Dylan Strome 20 minutes per game and finding out if he can be a core player should be more important than winning some random November game 3-2.
Strome played a team low 9:55 at 5v5 last night, even though he was 70% possession when he did play. Despite being by far the team's most talented forward, he was on the second power play unit.
Does it make sense to play Richard Panik on the PP over Dylan Strome? It does not.
The Coach needs to go. And if the GM won't fire the coach, then he needs to go too.
The Coyotes need a plan. They need proper priorities and they need people who can realize that just because the goals don't go in, doesn't mean you aren't playing well.