In perhaps their worst loss of the year, the Coyotes were embarrassed last night to the Blue Jackets by a score of 7-5.
In all my time watching hockey, I have never seen a team go on a streak like this. Seven losses in eight games, with six of them featuring at least five goals against. The one that didn't was four. Allowing this kind of scoring just doesn't happen in today's NHL. If this was the early 90s, the Coyotes would be averaging about 14 goals against per game.
The team hasn't won in regulation since November and last night was easily the lowest point of the season so far.
The biggest problem was that while the team actually played good, the goalies were awful. Like, so awful that if you wanted to increase attendance you might actually consider a "let a fan be the goalie" promotion.
Andres Lindback was garbage. And I think that is being nice.
With Smith down he had an opportunity to win a starting job. I can't imagine he still has that opportunity, as he allowed four goals on just ten shots.
Louis Domingue wasn't any better, but I don't think it's ever fair to rip on a rookie backup who has to enter a game cold.
Overall, the Coyotes allowed six goals on twenty shots, not counting the empty-netter.
Considering a sick Duclair was scratched and they had to replace their best non-Hanzal forward with Johnny Scott, the team itself actually played a pretty good game, attempting 51 shots to the Jackets 33, and out-shooting them 32 to 21.
But when you could literally strap pads on a chicken, throw him in net and get better goaltending, you don't have much chance at winning.
Here is what I did like about the game:
After suggesting it on and off for a really long time, Dave Tippett took my advice - or, more likely, has never heard of me and made an obvious decision he should have made a long time ago - and partnered Connor Murphy with Eckman-Larsson.
I hope this matchup becomes permanent because Murphy and OEL should be a dominant pairing - just so much talent and puck moving skill between them.
In all their time playing together for their careers, Murphy and OEL have a Corsi rating that is 2% higher than OEL's career rating. It should be noted that in Corsi, 2% is a very large difference, even if it doesn't sound like much.
This could be the start of something very special - now we just have to get working on getting three other defensemen to build around. I'd keep OEL and Murphy, and Stone is good too. So that's half a good team's worth of defensemen.
However, none of it matters if you don't have a goalie.
Thanks for reading.
Something I would expect Maloney to address very soon.