Follow @james_tanner123 The Coyotes, who have lost 3 in a row, kick off December against the Oilers tonight at the Northlands Coliseum.
They will be in for a tough match because the 6-14-4 Oilers will be trying to avoid their tenth straight loss. The Coyotes will be looking to avoid their fourth straight loss, which would be a season high.
The teams have met twice so far this year and the Coyotes won both times, once 7-4, and the second time it was 2-1. The two victories over the lowly Oilers account for the 4 of the 5 points the Coyotes are up on them in the standings.
Since the Coyotes only played two games last week, and Dubnyk started Saturday against the Flames, Mike Smith hasn't played in almost a week - which is also how long it's been since the Coyotes scored a goal. I would fully expect Smith to start tonight.
This game scares me - the first game of a road trip, (although it's just two games) the team in a slump and coming up against a hard-luck Oilers team that is due for a win and not playing nearly as bad as their record indicates and which has lost twice to the Coyotes already this year. All signs point to an Oilers win.
Either way, the game is sure to be more exciting that Saturday's affair and hopefully justifies the delaying of Gotham until tomorrow night.
I thought that show was going to be stupid to be honest, I mean, the coolest thing about Batman is obviously Batman, so to do a show without him seems dumb. I sure as hell wouldn't watch 24 without Baur or a Die Hard spin-off about Holly MacLean, but it actually turns out that Gotham is a great show. Who would have thought the O.C would be such a good Gordon?
But I digress.
Now a look at the week that was and what's gonna happen this week:
Record: 9-12-3
Standings: 6th in the Pacific, 13th in the Conference and 25th in the NHL with 21 points.
The Coyotes sit 7 points back of the Jets for the final Wild Card playoff spot, with four much more talented teams to jump over in the process.
McDavid Watch For the Coyotes to land their own Mario Lemieux they would need to finish last to have the best chance and no worse than third last - I THINK - you see, the NHL changed the lottery rules and I was just checking their page at NHL.com and while it lists odds for all teams, I am not sure if the old rule that says teams can only move up 3 spots is still in effect.
Anyways, currently the last place team is Columbus with 14 points. The Coyotes have a seven point lead with a game in hand.
Which Means: The Coyotes are in a bad spot. Too weak to make the playoffs and not weak enough to finish last. Barring a lottery win, the Coyote's currently sit in the worst possible place in the standings. They simply must make moves to get better or worse. The Past Week: Was an abomination. The Coyotes jumped out to a 3-0 lead over the Avalanche on Tuesday - due to good luck more than anything - and then promptly went five straight periods without scoring.
They blew the Avalanche game and then barely showed up Saturday against Calgary. All in all, they scored 3 goals in two games, earned a single point and lost both of them.
Overall, they won just 4 games in regulation out of 15 in November. Since they last beat Edmonton 2-1 on November 16th, they have won a game (in a shootout) and lost five. During that time they have scored 1 or less goals in 4 of those 6 games. Injuries: Hanzal returned this week, which means that Gormley and Moss remain the only injured players. As far as I know, neither Moss nor Gormley will be playing on this road trip.
Stats: Vermette and Yandle lead the team with 16 points in 24 games, which goes a long way in explaining the team's position in the standings.
Boedker and Doan lead the team with 7 goals each. Once again, if you consider that Boedker scored 3 of those goals in a single game, this is pathetic.
Yandle, Ekman-Larsson and Gagner have shooting percentages at 4% or less and so eventually they should start scoring goals since that is extremely unlucky.
Special Teams: Miraculously, the Coyotes have a power-play that opperates at nearly a 20% clip. This despite having the worst forwards in the NHL and skating Vermette as their primary forward option with the man advantage, and with their two best defenseman shooting under 4%.
What this means is that the pairing of OEL and Yandle is so potent that it is being wasted. In fact, the pairing of these two on the PP is so great that it makes me hesitant to want to move Yandle for the forward so desperately needed, although Stone does posses a cannon worthy of a top PP line.
I would also like to see Yandle and OEL play together more at even strength. It seems like an obvious move but the coach, for whatever reason, doesn't agree.
Arizona has a PK that operates at 79.2 % which puts them in the middle of the NHL, which isn't very good though since if you score on 20% of your PPs you have one of the best units in the league. I would think that perhaps Joe Vitale, good as he is, isn't exactly the best guy to lead your team in PK minutes.
The Week Ahead: Oilers tonight, Flames tomorrow, then its back home to face the Kings on Thursday and the Bruins on Saturday. So basically, it's a long week.
Thanks for reading.