With Saturday’s 6-0 win over the Minnesota Wild, the Arizona Coyotes have officially reached the midway point in the season. Through 41 games this season, the Coyotes have a record of 21-18-2 and are currently three points out of a Wild Card spot. Now is the perfect time to take stock of the situation and see how things have progressed this season.
The new additions are (mostly) working out.
Coyotes’ General Manager Bill Armstrong brought in a few players this past offseason, and overall, the additions have been positive.
Defenseman Sean Durzi was acquired for a second-round pick and currently leads the Coyotes’ defensive corp with 23 points in 35 games. He is the Coyotes’ best defenseman, and thankfully, he didn’t miss too much time when he was injured.
Center Alex Kerfoot has proven himself a jack-of-all-trades and saw himself play serious minutes on the top line with Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz after Barrett Hayton went down with an injury. He has played that stop-gap role about as well as could be expected.
Unfortunately, not all of the additions have worked out. Jason Zucker had a 27-goal season with the Pittsburgh Penguins last season but has only six goals in 31 games with the Desert Dogs so far.
Matt Dumba is also taking a lot of heat from the Coyotes fanbase, both because of some poor defensive play and a lack of offense, with the Regina, Saskatchewan native only registering five points in 40 games.
Both players are veterans and could be adding intangibles that the fanbase isn’t seeing, but hopefully, they will have a better second half of the season.
Logan Cooley is looking good but isn’t a consistent game-changer yet.
When the Coyotes announced that center Logan Cooley would be heading to the NHL instead of returning to the NCAA, fans were ecstatic. And through 41 games, you can definitely see reasons why there is so much excitement around Cooley, even if he needs a bit more time to get going.
Through 41 games this season, Cooley has three goals and 17 assists and is a -12. For a 19-year-old rookie, those numbers aren’t terrible, but they are a far cry from what Cooley’s potential seems to be.
Part of the problem could be Cooley’s linemates. He did spend a significant chunk of time with Schmaltz and Keller after Hayton went down with an injury, but he didn’t seem ready to play the critical minutes required to be on the Coyotes’ top line.
Cooley has also spent significant with Jason Zucker, with either Michael Carcone or Liam O’Brien serving on the other wing. This doesn’t seem ideal. Carcone was hot to start the year but has struggled lately, and O’Brien isn’t the guy you go to for consistent offense. Combine that with Zucker not playing well, and it may explain why Cooley isn’t putting up the numbers you would expect.
But there is always hope that Dylan Guenther sticks around after getting called up from Tucson, which could prove to be a winning combination.
Special Teams are much better.
Last season, the Coyotes’ power play and penalty kill were awful. Their power play was 24th in the NHL, converting only 18.9% of the time, while the penalty kill was 27th, killing only 74.6% of opponents’ power plays.
Through 41 games this season, the Coyotes’ power play is 10th in the NHL at 24.0%. The penalty kill isn’t at that level, but they have definitely improved and are currently 18th in the league with a 78.9% success rate.
A team shouldn’t overly rely on special teams to win games, but they can make a significant difference, especially in close games. Seeing the Coyotes improve in both areas is great as the team plays better.
Goaltending has been key to the Coyotes’ success.
The Arizona Coyotes have gotten some phenomenal goaltending this season. Connor Ingram deserves a lot of praise for his performance, and in 26 games this season, he boasts a 2.51 goals-against average, a .919 save percentage, and a league-leading five shutouts.
While not as impressive, Karel Vejmelka has shown flashes of brilliance this season, including his shutout win over the Buffalo Sabres last month and his solid play to help the Coyotes rally back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Ottawa Senators.
While Ingram appears to be the better goaltender, the team also seems to play better in front of him, resulting in Vejmelka getting hung out to dry during some rough games. Notably, neither looked great during the Coyotes’ five-game homestand, which saw them outscored four of the five games.
At this point, it seems like the Coyotes will continue using Ingram as a 1(a) goaltender, with Vejmelka still getting his share of starts. The Coyotes have no reason to deviate from that, especially as Ingram has faced a few rough games.
Overall, the Coyotes are doing much better, but they may still miss the post-season.
Going into this season, I believed the Coyotes would compete for a Wild Card spot. And through 41 games, the Coyotes have been better than expected, with some flashes of brilliance, but they still lack consistency. The Coyotes are undeniably a better team than last season, but it’s not enough to be a serious competitor, and it may not be enough to see them make the playoffs.
For the first time in a long time, the Coyotes are not just a one-line threat. The Yotes’ top line with Keller and Schmaltz has been shut down a few times, only to see the Lawson Crouse-Nick Bjugstad-Matias Maccelli line step up and score. While he has been quiet for a while, Michael Carcone did some serious damage to start the season and could see himself hitting the 20-goal mark this year.
The Coyotes are trending in the right direction and are in a good spot for the rebuild. Fans should be excited by the steps the team has taken and the fact that things should improve next season as younger players like Maccelli, Cooley, and Guenther get more experience.