For…Arizona, Dave?
The Coyotes are a difficult team to figure out so far. They’ve been wildly inconsistent in just about every aspect of the game. Some nights they play great defense that Tippet would be proud of, other nights they let in 6 or 7 goals. Some nights they can’t score to save their lives (shutout 3 times already this season), and others they score 6 to beat the Capitals or 7 to beat the Oilers (I know, who hasn’t amirite?). What is for sure is this is not a very skilled team. When your top line consists of Tobias Rieder (who?), Sam Gagner, and an aging Shane Doan you’re in a heap of trouble, although one could argue that’s their 2nd line now. Still, this is also a team that’s managed to beat Anaheim, L.A., and Washington so far this year, so clearly Tippett is squeezing the last ounce of point production out of this team. But 5 on 5 this is one of the worst teams in the league, and that is very, very un-Tippett-like.
Like the Flames, Arizona’s offense is led by their defense, and Yandle leads the team with 11 points despite a truly incredibly bad shooting% of 1.7%. Obviously he’s due to breakout any day now, so watch out for Yandle. Both Yandle and Ekman-Larsson lead the team in shots with 58 and 56 respectively. The next closest? Vermette at 42, and it drops off drastically from there. This team struggles to score on a regular basis, ranking 25th in GF/G in the league ahead of Montreal, Colorado, and Winnipeg (who would have said that before the season started?). They struggle because they have the worst forward group, in terms of talent, in the league, and that’s including Buffalo.
But hold on a minute, it’s all good because Arizona plays good defense and Mike Smith is a really good goalie, right? Hold on there hot shot. Arizona has been terrible defending as well, ranking 27th in GA/G at 3.33 (worse than Edmonton, OUCH!). They have offensive defensemen, but no really great shut down defenders, at least not at this stage of their career. Of course, it doesn’t help when both Smith and Devan Dubnyk have Sv% below .900. Neither has been able to bail the team out with any consistency, but at least Smith has gotten it together in his last 5 games. He’s had a Sv% anywhere from .914 to .970, showing that he can still hold this awful team together. Then it all fell apart in a poor showing against Dallas last game with a .875 Sv% in that game. Who knows which Smith will show up tonight?
The Flames are coming off a disappointing loss to Carolina to end another long road trip to start the year, and have had a couple days to rest, practice, and stew over the poor showing. Lord knows Hartley is going to have them energized to play this one. Still missing 4 important forwards, the Flames are expecting Baertschi back after a battle with a virus (flu?). It’s possible that he didn’t look exceptional in his first few games because of the bug. If it’s the same one that went through the Flames team earlier this year it took a heavy toll on players like Monahan, Hudler, and Gaudreau to name a few, and it stuck around a long time as well. No excuses though, Sven finally has the anchor that is Setoguchi off his line and has “50 pounds of dynamite” Jooris to help him get his game going.
The offense has been surprisingly good however, despite the loss of manpower at forward. Calgary still ranks 8th in both GF/G and PP% so far this year, at nearly the 20 game mark, which should give an indication of a trend for the year. Giordano extended his point streak to 7 games with an assist on Jones’ 2nd in as many games the other night. Speaking of Jones, he has 3 point in his last 4 games and is playing a strong power forward style of game with a lot of tenacity.
The defense has been suffering lately however. A team that was at one point near the top of the league in GA/G is now down to 13th. Some of that has been inconsistent team play and wearing down on the road, but the goaltending just hasn’t been the same in the last 3 or 4 games. Hiller has been more prone to letting in bad goals, and Ramo tweaked something in practice before his pretty awful start in Florida where he was pulled. The GAAs have risen and the Sv% have fallen, to be expected after such lofty early numbers. Still, as long as the team plays a more sound game defensively and the goalies give them a Sv% of at least .910 every night, they should still win their share of games the rest of the season.
Notes: Full disclosure, I’m just going to lift what SureLoss wrote in the notes from yesterday’s practice, just to keep everyone up to date who didn’t read that thread.
-this is the first time Ferland skated with the main group since his concussion on Oct 31st. Hartley says Ferland will need 5-6 days to get up to speed
-Colborne and Raymond skated on their own before the main group
-Bollig and Setoguchi are confirmed to be sitting out against Phoenix, Baertschi and McGrattan draw back in
-Hiller is confirmed starter against Phoenix
-Hartley has no updates on Colborne, Stajan, Backlund, or Raymond, but says none of them are close to returning
Flames
Glencross-Monahan-Jones
Gaudreau-Granlund-Hudler
Baertschi-Jooris-Byron
Bouma-Reinhart-McGrattan
Giordano-Brodie
Russell-Wideman
Smid-Engelland
Hiller
Arizona
Rieder-Gagner-Doan
Korpikoski-Vermette-Boedker
Klinkhammer-Hanzal-Erat
Chipchura-Vitale-Crombeen
Ekman-Larsson-Michalek
Yandle-Murphy
Gormley-Stone
Smith
Go Flames Go!