After 41 games – the exact halfway mark of the season – the Coyotes sit in 8th place in the conference, two points up on Dallas, and technically tied with Minnesota, though the Wild have played three more games. Phoenix is also only six points behind the Canucks, with three games in hand.
Considering the overall strength of the Western Conference, where the Coyotes sit in the standings has to be seen as good news. They have a decent roster overall: strong defense and goaltending, an assortment of quality third and fourth line players and even – if they loaded up Ribeiro, Vrbata and Boedker – a really good second line. Unfortunately, they have no real game breaking forward that they can build a dangerous first line around. Until they can do this, the reality is that they aren’t going to be able to challenge the Kings, Blues, Sharks, Ducks or Black Hawks at the top of the conference.
Still, the overall strength of the roster is above average and any team with OEL and Mike Smith is going to have a good chance of winning on any given night, and maybe even a good chance to win a round or two in the playoffs. If they want to be a Stanley Cup contender, however, there is no choice: They must acquire a game breaking forward. I love Antoine Vermette, he is one of the best defensive forwards, penalty killers, and face off experts in the NHL, but the Coyotes cannot possibly hope to compete long term if he is going to be their ice-time leader among forwards, as he has been so far this year.
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One can get down about the difficulty of acquiring a first line game-breaking forward – or one can get creative, so let me propose something perhaps crazy: what if Malone traded Oliver Ekman-Larsson? He is easily one of the best defenseman in the NHL and is only going to get better. Now, you probably shouldn’t ever trade these players, as they are so incredibly rare – but the Coyotes have Yandle, Gormley, Stone and Murphy. That’s four guys good enough to still give you one of the best defenses in the NHL, once they all develop. So what if you could trade OEL to the Islanders for Tavares? They will probably end up trading Yandle (my prediction) to get the forward they need, but Yandle isn’t going to get you Tavares or his equivalent. This allows you to maximize the return while still maintaining most of your strength. The NHL is nothing if not an extremely conservative league and you don’t often see a lot of out-of-the-box thinking, but I think it’s at least worth thinking about on a slow news day, like today.
I’m not saying I think they should trade OEL; I’m just putting it out there for discussion: should a team that is overstocked in one area try to balance things out by trading their best player? Is there any merit to the idea or is it dumb?
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Sad to see Gilbert Brule retire at the age of 27. I thought he gave the Coyotes some decent fourth line versatility, but they would apparently rather go with the ancient and snail-like Jeff Halpern. It is said that Brule was sick of living out of hotels and traveling on busses, and so he decided that he would rather retire than go back to the minors. He probably has enough money to live out the rest of his life in relative comfort, so I can’t say I blame him. I do feel bad for the guy though – or at least as bad as you can feel for a millionaire athlete.
This is a guy who once had people arguing that perhaps Crosby’s QMJHL stats were inflated by the league’s reputedly high scoring games and thus maybe Brule was the guy who should be picked first overall in 2005. Obviously that was crazy, and I don’t think anyone with any real knowledge thought he was a better prospect than Crosby, but I do remember people being somewhat shocked that he fell to 6th in the draft and that Price and Ryan were selected ahead of him. I guess it just goes to show that the difference in actual talent between players capable of playing in the NHL is a lot smaller than we sometimes think and that the mental side of the game is often overlooked.
Who knows why Brule didn’t succeed? He was rushed into the league, injured a lot, bounced around and never really given a chance to play on a scoring line, but it’s hard to say for sure. Maybe he was a head-case or suffered from the over-confidence that can come with always being the best player on any team you ever played for until you were drafted. Either way, in a first-world-problem kind of way, it’s sad to see him retire.
--- With Team Canada set to be announced tomorrow, I thought I would throw in my thoughts on the subject – because there just are not enough opinions about the team out there yet.
Number one, I think Canada’s goalie situation is bizarre and just kind of illustrates the sort of conservative by-the-book thinking that has everyone just going along with the status quo. To wit: why is Luongo seemingly the automatic starter? I would have a 1-2 of Price and Smith. Hands down, no questions asked, give me Smith over Luongo any day and give me Price over both of them.
Secondly, why does Bergeron automatically make the team? I am not saying he shouldn’t necessarily make the team, but over Thornton? Over Duchene? I know everyone says you can’t just take the best players and that you have to have some kind of checking line, but why? If you match a Crosby-Stamkos line against the other team’s first line, they are still going to dominate. Does anyone really think that if asked, guys like Stamkos, Perry, Getzlaf and Crosby can’t kill penalties or take checking assignments? Bergeron is not on my team, though I guarantee you he’s on the real team (they never asked my opinion).
Finally, the talk surrounding the defense has me a little perplexed. Everyone says that Bouwmeester is a lock, and I agree that he is a good player. However, everyone who plays with Pietrangelo is going to be a great player. Same with Seabrook. I know he’s good, but everyone who plays with Duncan Keith is going to be good. What about guys like Phaneuf who don’t normally play with a good partner? It seems to me the physicality of a Dion Phaneuf/ Shea Weber combo would be a thing to behold.
And what about Subban? The eighth defenseman? Come on! He’s way better than that. If I was in charge I would go with Keith, Subban, Weber, Phaneuf, Pietrangelo and Letang as my starting six. It is more dynamic and less conservative than the normally predicted and sure to actually be selected group that includes Seabrook, Doughty and Bouwmeester.
Maybe I am crazy, but I just think it would be nice if some of these articles and thought pieces on what the team might be actually tried to think for themselves and deviated from conventional wisdom. (And I am talking about mainstream reporters here, not bloggers, who do just that). And don’t think I am just trying to be different for the sake of being different either. I think Phaneuf gives you a skill set no one but Weber comes close to duplicating and I think the conventional idea that you have to take checkers is going to go out the window the next time they don’t win gold. And if they leave Thornton off the team so they can take Bergeron, there’s a good chance it could happen this year.
Those are my thoughts, I would love to hear yours, Thanks for reading