After several overtime and shootout heart attacking thrillers which saw them go 2-0-1 against some of the better teams in the league, the Coyotes tried to defend their unbeaten streak at home against the Stamkos-less Lightning, not as easy a task as it seems as the Lightning have been rolling with quality goaltending and massive offensive depth from their championship AHL squad. The Coyotes were missing two of their top-four defensemen in Zbynek Michalek and Derek Morris, but got excellent performances from their young replacements. In the end a 6-3 final score was good enough to end Tampa’s unbeaten streak against Western Conference teams (one of the only Eastern teams faring well in that regard) and keep them perfect at home with a 9-0-1 record at Jobing.ca…while also moving them back to within one point of first place in the league. Not a bad day.
The defense was an interesting mix. With Michalek, Morris and Klesla gone due to injuries the age of the defense was hilariously young. Keith Yandle was the oldest player on the blueline at 27.
OEL (22) – Michael Stone (23)
Keith Yandle (27) – Connor Murphy (20)
David Schlemko (26) – David Rundblad (23)
Average age = 23.5 years old
Connor Murphy scored his first goal in his first ever NHL game. The 20th overall pick in 2011, 6’3 Boston native was called up to replace the injured right handed defenders and when asked The coach of the Coyotes AHL affiliate Portland Pirates said that would be Murphy. Paired with Yandle he was very strong in his first ever game. He showed exactly the brand of hockey he is known to play when he isn’t constantly injured. He was physical, was solid in his own end and strong enough offensively to hang around on the attack.
Michael Stone also has shown why they won’t need to re-sign Morris this off-season. Stone has been excellent in my opinion this season and hasn’t complained once about his shifting role. He seems to thrive on more and more ice-time. His confidence has really been boosted with the puck luck going his way and he’s using his massive shot a lot more, including a team high 4 shots. I still wish he would get a tad more time on the PP, but I understand that you can’t have everybody on the ice at once, especially when OEL-Yandle have been money this season together on the man advantage. Stone did manage to open the scoring with a PP goal which got an assist from David Rundblad, a much needed first point for the young Swede this season. That’s 5 goals in his past 6 games for Stone who is tied for the league lead in goals by defenseman with 6. With that goal as well the Coyotes have an NHL-best 18 goals from the defense in the first 21 games.
People might be worried about why Connor Murphy (2011) played his first NHL game before Brandon Gormley (2010) especially with Gormley having a lot more pedigree as a prospect. Well it’s quite simple, Tippett is a firm believer in left hander-right hander as a pairing, and sadly for Gormley there are three lefties on the team uninjured at the moment. Schlemko may be the least of the Coyotes defenders, but he’s still a lefty that can’t be sent down or he is on waivers. Gormley has been excellent in the AHL and will get his turn when a few of these contracts get settled next season…though I have to admit it is a bit nerve racking that he will probably be forced simply by necessity to play on the bottom pairing next season or even if he gets the call this season at some point.
Line “two… had a massive game as well. Korpikoski-Hanzal-Vrbata was a force offensively. Korpi had a goal and two assists, Vrbata 3 assists and Hanzal a goal and 3 assists, combined for 10 points on the night. With that big game Hanzal goes to a PPG player on the season with his team leading 18 points in 18 games…which is really nice because it kind of gets both sad and awestruck to see OEL and Yandle leading the team in points. Korpikoski is on a bit of a hot streak after coming out of the gate flaccid, he has 3 goals and 5 points in his past 4 games.
Mike Smith was good enough for the win, though this wasn’t exactly his best game. Certainly not the same performance as he had against Chicago and St. Louis, but overall he did his job…and it’s hard to fault him when he only faced 4 shots by the mid second period, he was probably half asleep. Usually the Yotes give up 30+…by the second period. He ended the day with 27 saves on 30 shots. Smith has been very good this season, not sure if Olympic good (Bonsoir Carey!), but certainly very good.
Mike Ribeiro had a good game as a PP specialist, though a “meh… game overall. Not that it really mattered in the end, but I felt he was a little overmatched at 5vs5. The Boedker-Vermette-Moss line was also having a bit of an off day, usually they’re ridiculously solid, but oh well. Doan at least grabbed his team leading 10th goal of the year, that’s 9 goals in his last 11 games to go along with 13 points during that stretch. The Captain is on fire and only 3 goals from tying last half-seasons output.
It was a good day for firsts. Murphy and Tampa’s J.T. Brown both scored their first of their careers. Richard Panik scored the first of his season. Stone beat his career high in goals already and David Rundblad didn’t give up the puck on a stupid fancy play for the first time in his NHL career!
Coyotes Three Stars :
1. Martin Hanzal : 1G 3A 3 Hits +4, played well on the PP and PK, solid on the draw, excellent night.
2. Oliver Ekman-Larsson : 4 Hits, +3 27:16 TOI, no points for once but he was excellent regardless, saved a goal and rang it off the post in the first period.
3. Radim Vrbata : 3A +4, Vrbata was everywhere in the offensive zone, very dangerous again.
Thanks for reading. Next game is all the way on Thursday against the Avalanche.