Game Recap
Last night may have been the most undisciplined Arizona Coyotes game, potentially in years. The Coyotes may have fallen 2-1 to the St. Louis Blues, but in many ways they beat themselves.
St. Louis got on the board early with one of the wackiest goals of the season. One of the referees seemed to step on a puck, deflecting it towards the net and taking out Logan Cooley as he fell. The puck eventually got free in the perfect position for Oskar Sundqvist to knock home, giving the Blues the lead just over two minutes in.
You would think that after that, the Coyotes would tighten up and play disciplined hockey, but you would be extremely wrong.
Midway through the period, Liam O’Brien would get called for cross-checking and roughing against Sammy Blais. Blais checked O’Brien into glass in what honestly did not look that bad, but O’Brien took exception and tried to go after him. As a result, the Blues would get four straight minutes of power play time.
And it didn’t stop there. Just nine seconds after O’Brien sat in the box, Matt Dumba was called for boarding, meaning the Blues had two minutes of 5-on-3. Thankfully, the Blues’ power play was awful, and they failed to convert on any of their power plays.
Arizona would get their first power play of the game three-quarters of the way through the opening frame, and they made it count.
Lawson Crouse found a quiet part of the ice and perfectly received a Clayton Keller pass to tie the game 1-1, and the Coyotes were back in it.
But any hopes that the Coyotes would tighten up and stay disciplined were quickly dashed. Josh Brown took a late slashing call, and the Coyotes spent the final two minutes killing another penalty.
The second period was slightly better in that the Coyotes took fewer penalties, but they took too many. Arizona was short-handed three times in the middle frame, all of which happened after Robert Thomas gave the Blues a 2-1 lead.
And it wasn’t like the Blues were making the Coyotes take penalties to avoid getting scored on. The Coyotes took dumb penalties, and while it didn’t cost them on the scoresheet, it kept their best players off the ice and kept them from building any kind of offense.
By the time the third period started, it was already too late. The Coyotes played their best hockey in the final frame, which isn’t saying much, given how the first two periods went. The Coyotes had ten shots through the first two periods and ten shots in the third, telling you all you need to know about how much better the final period is.
Arizona has been a heavily penalized team for the past few seasons, but they were also an extremely bad team. Now that the team is improving, they must find a way to stay disciplined and out of the box. Last night’s game was winnable, but the Coyotes shot themselves in the foot over and over again.
Lines
Three Stars
- Robert Thomas – Game-winning goal
- Karel Vejmelka – 22 saves on 24 shots
- Joel Hofer – 19 saves on 20 shots
Next Game
The Coyotes’ next matchup is against the Nashville Predators this Saturday at 6:00 p.m.