The Coyotes were beaten last night partially by themselves and partially by the Washington Capitals. OK, mostly by themselves.
Despite being outplayed to my eye - and the stats put Washington at 55% 5v5 for the game - the Coyotes managed to build up a nice little two goal lead.
Then, they sat back and defended it. Terribly.
Where to start?
The Coyotes took five penalties in the second period, four of them while they were still winning. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but if you have a lead, the number one thing you should probably not do is take a penalty. It's really hard to score in the NHL if you don't have a power-play, so teams should probably try much harder to stay out of the box in general, but for sure when you are gifted a lead.
Overall, the undisciplined last-place team took seven minor penalties.
Now, I was flipping between games, so I could have missed it, but I didn't see Dakota Mermis get injured. Assuming he wasn't, the coach only played him for about five minutes while pushing OEL over thirty minutes, and Demers close to it. If Mermis sucks that bad, maybe don't play him? No sense in giving yourself five defensemen.
Another coaching complaint: Tocchet benched Duclair for (I think) the fourth time in a row. I like Duclair and he's one of the only players on the team who can put the puck in the net. At this point, on their second coach with no time for him, they might as well just let him have a chance on a different team and focus on developing players they like.
Duclair is sitting while the Tobias Rieder plays on the top line. I don't get it, but there you have it. If Leafs fans are perplexed by how Babcock is icing his lineup, imagine trying to make sense of this team.
In all fairness though, what's the coach supposed to do? Reider on the top line is certainly out-of-the-box thinking, and it's worth a shot, but I don't think Reider isn't really ever going to suddenly get good at scoring. He is what he is - a speedy, pesky player who is a border-line top nine player, who can score a bit and play OK at defense. He's not terrible, but he's also not a player on a contending team.
Dvorak is the second line centre. I am a huge fan, but his play (42% CF and 2 goals/9 points ) should have him in the AHL. And he is the SECOND LINE centre. Last night he played 18 minutes and was on the ice for 15 shots against, 6 for.
Here is a list of Coyotes players who have played well this season: Keller, Domi, Stepan, Ekman-Larsson, Demers, Richardson.
That's only 1/3 of a roster. The Coyotes Obviously aren't giving up on Dvorak and Fischer, but some NHL quality upgrades so these guys can play where they'll be effective is past necessary. I have no problem letting them learn in the NHL, but if the Coyotes had players who could play the tougher minutes so that they could, like most teams would, play them down in the lineup, in protected minutes when possible.
While they aren't as bad as their record would indicate, the Coyotes do need to get some immediate help.
stats from naturalstattrick.com