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The Penguins closed out a very successful month of January by beating the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 on Thursday night. The victory pushed the Penguins record to 9-2-1 for the month.
Pittsburgh has a 15 point lead in the division over the New York Rangers with two games in hand.
The Penguins are in great shape heading into their final 4 games before the Olympic break. The schedule includes tonight’s game against Phoenix, an away game at Buffalo, and two home games against Ottawa and the New York Rangers.
With the division pretty much on lock down the attention can be turned to roster management. How is Ray Shero going to approach the deadline? This particular deadline is very fascinating this year. The combination of the Olympic break and the many different routes Shero can take via trade make for a totally unpredictable month of February.
The Penguins need more forward depth, but there is no clear and distinct path on how Shero will accomplish getting that depth. This makes it difficult to dismiss rumors that involve the Penguins. There are just so many options.
It should make for a fun month.
Tonight’s opponent are the Phoenix Coyotes. The Coyotes have been a very successful team under the guidance of Dave Tippett. The Coyotes have made the playoffs 3 out of the last 4 seasons (missed out last year).
Tonight’s game is big for the Coyotes, they are currently 3 points out of the wild card with 2 games in hand on the Vancouver Canucks.
The Coyotes usually find their success by playing great team hockey. They are not a team that has a lot of high end talented players. They seem to be a group of good players who consistently work hard and abide by the systems in place from Tippett.
The Coyotes leading scorer is the unheralded Mikkel Boedker who has 37 points in 54 games. Mike Ribeiro also has 37 points for the Coyotes.
The Coyotes best player is the sensational young talent on defense, Oliver Ekman-Larsson. OEL has the potential to develop into one of the game’s premier players on defense, there very well could be Norris Trophies in his future.
Keith Yandle has struggled a little bit after being left off of Team USA’s roster for Sochi. Will playing in front of the Head Coach and Assistant GM who cut him be just the thing to right his ship?
The big news for the coyotes this week was the announcement that they will be rebranding their franchise as the Arizona Coyotes. It might not seem like a big deal but I do think that is a good move for the franchise.
The biggest problem for the Coyotes is one that they will not be able to fix anytime soon. When the Coyotes built a new arena they made a really poor decision by having it in Glendale. By building the arena outside of the Phoenix city limits it has put much unneeded stress on the fans to travel out to Glendale. From everything I hear it is a major inconvenience for fans and is a driving force on why the Coyotes have been struggling to build up their fan base.
When you couple the annoying travel issues for fans with the fact that the Coyotes lack star power it makes it incredibly difficult to make gains in a traditionally non hockey market. To put things into perspective their 4th line plug Paul Bissonnette probably has the most national appeal to hockey fans. I do think Bissonnette is very humorous on his twitter account and has a great personality, but that still isn’t a good sign for the star power of the Coyotes roster.
These two teams are complete opposites as the Penguins carry with them enormous star power and national attention, while the Coyotes are often forgotten about and not on the national radar.
The Penguins will be looking to extend their winning ways against the Pacific Division. They are 8-0-1 so far this year against that division.
The Penguins haven’t been in Phoenix since the 2010-2011 season. The Penguins defeated the Coyotes 4-3 in a shootout in a game which saw Brent Johnson in relief for Marc Andre Fleury and Mark Letestu score the lone shootout goal.
If you can believe it this Sidney Crosby goal in Phoenix is over 7 years old! Where has the time gone!?
Line Combos
Kunitz-Crosby-Gibbons Jokinen-Malkin-Neal Glass-Sutter-Megna Pyatt-Adams-Engelland
Orpik-Martin Scuderi-Bortuzzo Maatta-Niskanen
Marc Andre Fleury
Kennedy-Hanzal-Vrbata Korpikoski-Vermette-Boedker Doan-Ribeiro-Moss Bissonnette-Halpern-Chipchura
Ekman Larsson-Michalek Morris-Yandle Schlemko-Murphy
Mike Smith
Fenclose %
The Penguins are 10th overall at 51.9%
The Coyotes are 18th at 49.3%
Even Strength Save Percentage
The Penguins are 24th overall at .9147%
The Coyotes are 16th overall at .9223%.
Power Play
Penguins maintain their status as the best power play team in the league after striking multiple times with the man advantage against LA. They are at an even 25.0% on the year.
The Coyotes are a top 10 power play team and sit 7th overall with 20.4%
Penalty Kill
Penguins are still #1 in penalty killing at 87.3% however the New Jersey Devils are closing infast with 87.1%. the Penguins have given up a power play goal in two out of their last 3 games. The last time that happened was when the Penguins made their trip to Alberta.
The Coyotes PK is not as good as their power play. The Coyotes rank 26th overall at 79.1%.
Trends
Penguins are 10-1 in their last 11 vs. Pacific.
Penguins are 11-5 in their last 16 road games.
Coyotes are 7-16 in their last 23 overall
Coyotes are 2-6 in their last 8 Saturday games.
Coyotes are 1-5 in their last 6 vs. Eastern Conference.
Penguins are 6-2 in the last 8 meetings.
Stats courtesy of covers.com
Thanks for reading!
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