The first twenty games of the season for the Phoenix Coyotes saw them exceeding all expectations and pushing for the lead of the Pacific Division. Unfortunately, over the past twenty-one games, the Coyotes have gone only 8-11-1 and dropped down to 11th place in the Western Conference. The good news is that the Desert Dogs still sit only 4 points behind San Jose for top spot in the Pacific Division.

After the jump, we'll look back at the most recent 5 games and how the players have fared, trending up, down or staying still...

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The Phoenix Coyotes had a short skid dropping a tough game in Winnipeg and getting shellacked by Philadelphia in the first period, but they've responded strong with back-to-back wins on back-to-back nights in Chicago and Nashville.

With the first of four games against Detroit looming tonight, let's see who has been bringing the pressure, who's been dropping the ball and who's just been coasting by...

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The Phoenix Coyotes have been a team on a mission to prove to everyone (for the third consecutive year) that they are a legitimate threat in the Western Conference. It's not an easy task and they seem to be perpetually surprising the "experts" with their whole being more than the sum of its parts.

But that's not to say that many individual players aren't excelling through the quarter pole. Although we are going to focus just on the past two weeks, we'll also highlight a few players that have excelled through the first 23 games.

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The Phoenix Coyotes are rolling right now, going 7-1-2 over their past 10 games while winning their last 5 games on the road. The Coyotes now sit just 1 point behind Dallas for best in the Pacific and have taken the first 4 points on their 5-game road trip, which is about how many I was predicting they would take overall. So barring a three game skid, the Desert Dogs should be in good shape to surpass that total.

But for now, let's look back at how the Coyotes have played over the past two weeks. It's been an exciting ride as a fan and hopefully more and more fans are starting to take some notice.

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Anyone that knows me knows I'm not so much a stats guy. However when they show fun things like how awesome Mike Smith is. I can use one or two. With how everyone was freaking out about how Phoenix was going to eat it when they traded away Byzgalov's rights to the Flyers, Mike Smith seemed to be, well, not an adequate upgrade. Nevermind the fact that he was a similar build of Bryzgalov, had formerly played for Dave Tippett and would have a great goalie coach in Sean Burke to improve his game. The early evidence though shows that the Coyotes are doing just peachy without the big Russian. Sure 13 games isn't a season, but hard to argue that the Coyotes would be better off paying Bryz a boatload of money than they are with Smith right now. Let's look at the numbers.

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Ok, missed an entire week or two which is bad of me, but the Phoenix Coyotes had too many games and I've been too busy at work, so as Coach Tippett does, I'm taking this week to look back at the first ten games of the season and see how everyone is doing. We'll try and be better about doing this every week in the future. So, this information will not include last night's game against Colorado.

For those that have not joined us previously, we're looking at every Coyotes player on the roster and saying whether their performance is trending up, trending down or staying about neutral. Follow the jump to see the master list.

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It may be a bit early to be looking at how everyone is doing this year, but why should that stop us. Back by popular demand (ok, back because I like writing them and it's a good way to check in with how the team and players are performing each week). For those new to the site, or that have forgotten how this works, we'll look at each player on the Phoenix Coyotes roster and determine whether they are trending up, trending down or staying in neutral.

Of course, the first week is kind of the baseline, so we're really looking right now at whether players have performed well, poorly or been generally not noticeable. The one exception, well...keep reading after the jump to find out.

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The Phoenix Coyotes didn't have the most dominating final week of the season, but playing some motivated and fairly good Pacific Division foes didn't exactly lend itself to dominating performances. The Coyotes did enough to get the job done going 1-1-1 down the stretch and putting themselves in the #6 position in the Western Conference.

As we do every Wednesday, join us after the jump for a look at who's trending up, trending down and sitting in neutral as we head to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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