The Coyotes have sent future star Christian Dvorak to the AHL.
The Coyotes are 2-6 and have played Dvorak in seven of those games. They have played fellow top prospect Dylan Strome in just three games.
The other day, Dave Tippett said (and I'm paraphrasing) that one reason Strome has been sitting is that you can't 'play him down in the lineup' like you can with other guys.
That quote sums up my impatience with Dave Tippett.
Scoring centres are better than defensive specialist "checkers" because they drive the play. Instead of specializing in not having the puck, they get it back.
The NHL is moving towards having four lines, all with skilled players, playing more balanced ice time.
How do I know this? Because the stats say it's the optimal strategy. What the stats say will eventually happen because money and winning are the incentives and that trumps tradition.
It might not happen on a league-wide scale tomorrow, or even next year, but it will happen. Already most teams have moved away from a top-six / bottom-six deployment.
(Example: Leafs top four centres are Matthews, Kadri, Bozak, Holland).
Ironically, a notable exception is the team with "stats guru" John Chayka in charge.
On paper, giving the inexperienced 27 year-old GM Dave Tippett to balance out the structure of the team seems reasonable. However, we are eight games into what appears to be an untenable situation.
What "stats guy" is going to approve of Tippett's obvious old-school mentality? What "stats guy" would agree that you can't play Dylan Strome on the fourth line? Or having Shane Doan and Brad Richardson on the second?
Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I know about stats and the progressive evolution of the game, Tippett and Chayka do not seem to be a good match.
It is perfectly possible that Dvorak needs more minor league time. He has three assists in eight games and a 40% CF. So he's not done great.
However, he's only averaging nine 5v5 minutes per game, so I'm not sure how much you can get done playing those kind of minutes. Interestingly, when paired with Max Domi, which he was for about half his 5v5 TOI, they put up a 57% possession rating.
Dvorak has also only averaged less than a minute per game on the Power Play. Considering his greatest skill is his offense, this seems like another bad coaching decision. (Why not use all the tools at your disposal?) (Also I think the qualifier "seems" is ridiculously polite).
Basically, on the rare occasion that Dvorak was put in a position to do well, he did well.
Now, he's in the AHL.
And presumably we will now get a look at Strome, which is cool, but I don't like the idea that they can't both play together. Newsflash: you're 2-6 when refusing to play them together, so how could it be worse?
There is no reason at all, in the progressive, intelligent NHL, why you couldn't ice Strome on any line, even a fourth line of scoring action. No reason your four centres can't be Strome, Hanzal, Dvorak and Dauphin.
Well, unless your name is Dave Tippett and you think it's 1996.
Coyotes host the Sharks tonight.
Stats from Corica.Hockey and Stats.hockeyanalysis.com