Coyotes' painful season draws to merciful close
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The end of the NHL regular season normally draws a mixture of laments and melancholy responses from teams that aren't playoff bound.
The Coyotes?
"I'm ready to wrap it up on Saturday, for sure," coach Dave Tippett said after Thursday's 5-0 loss at Vancouver. "Time to start fixing the mess."
There isn't one living soul who should blame Tippett for that response after this exasperating year. The Coyotes will finish the season with their lowest point total since moving to the Valley in 1996, and with one game left in the season, their 56 current points are just five more than they earned in the 48-game, lockout shortened 2012-13 season.
If the Coyotes don't beat Anaheim on Saturday, they will tie the fewest home wins (11) since the franchise moved here and this year's team has already set the franchise record for consecutive home losses (nine) -- twice.
Arizona is 29th in the 30-team NHL in goals 169, 29th in goals against 270 and the list of dubious feats goes on.
"It's pretty embarrassing," captain Shane Doan said. "There's not much more you can say about it."
The dramatic depths to which the franchise has fallen since its run to the 2012 Western Conference Final are shocking. In truth, however, anybody who viewed this team through clear lenses should have seen the warning signs back in training camp.
When a team derails with this much velocity, there are many factors at play. Here are five main reasons the pack went off the tracks this season.
COYOTES vs. DUCKS
When: 6 p.m. Saturday
Where: Gila River Arena, Glendale
TV: FOX Sports Arizona Plus
Season series: Ducks lead 2-0-2
Injuries: Arizona -- RW Mikkel Boedker (splenectomy) and C Martin Hanzal (back surgery) are out for the season. F Lauri Korpikoski (mouth) and F Shane Doan (lower body) are day to day. Anaheim -- C Ryan Getzlaf (undisclosed) is day to day and may play.
Quick facts: Anaheim can still earn the Western Conference's top seed with a win over the Coyotes. The Ducks are currently tied with St. Louis but own the tiebreakers based on more ROWs and more points in the season series. ... F Corey Perry leads Anaheim with 33 goals and C Ryan Getzlaf leads the team with 68 points.
Radim Vrbata's departure: The Coyotes let their purest goal-scorer -- a guy who somehow netted 20 goals last season with an AHL player on his off-wing -- walk in free agency. Vrbata offered to stay without a raise, but the Coyotes weren't even willing to spend that much for an honest, hard-working player who has 31 goals this season for playoff-bound Vancouver.
It's OK to let veterans walk if you have suitable replacements in the minors ready to take their place, or another plan in free agency. The Coyotes had neither. As a result, a team already short on scoring dropped to the bottom of its conference in that department.
Mike Smith's struggles: Through the first half of the season, the Coyotes highly-paid goaltender was flirting with the league's worst save percentage. Some of that was due to poor defending and poor puck possession in front of him (we'll get to that in a minute), some of it was on Smith, who allowed soft goals on a nightly basis, lost his confidence and, at times, lost his composure.
Smith has played well over the last two months of the season, but that was without the pressure of the playoffs riding on his shoulders. The Coyotes will need to see the guy who showed up in March return in October.
An immature blue line: The Coyotes gambled that they could let another veteran defenseman -- in this case, the slowing Derek Morris -- walk away without replacing him. It backfired big-time. For all his offensive capabilities, Keith Yandle was too often a defensive liability, Oliver Ekman-Larsson struggled in the early going and none of the team's touted youngsters -- Connor Murphy, Michael Stone and Brandon Gormley -- proved they were ready to assume a role among the team's top two pairings.
The Coyotes turned pucks over, they lost battles along their own boards, they lost battles in front of their net and they lost a lot of games. It wasn't until Arizona inserted Andrew Campbell and dealt for Klas Dahlbeck that things started to improve. Arizona needs to find more of that element in free agency.
Key injuries: If you were to pick a handful players the Coyotes couldn't afford to lose for an extended period of time, Martin Hanzal and Mikkel Boedker would have been on that list. Boedker suffered a ruptured spleen in January that ended his season. He is still tied for the team lead in goals among forwards with 14 (Mark Arcobello has scored nine of his 17 goals with the Coyotes). Hanzal underwent back surgery in February. The Coyotes have gone 7-24-2 since his departure.
The margin for error on this roster was already razor thin (and got thinner with the trades of Antoine Vermette, Yandle and Zbynek Michalek). Losing two key components was a death blow.
A brutal Western Conference: The Central Division sports four teams with 100 or more points, a wild card team that can finish with 99 and a last place team that could finish with 90. Couple that with Anaheim, L.A. a resurgent Vancouver and Calgary's Cinderella story and you have too many good teams competing for too few postseason spots.
This is not to say that the Coyotes could have been a contender in the East, but Edmonton is the only other team in the West that will finish below .500. The Coyotes never had a chance.
Improvement next season will be predicated on a number of factors, including the NHL Draft Lottery on April 18, the Draft, free agency and the progression of the team's key prospects. The road may prove longer than the organization hopes, but for the players and coaches who will still be around, simply escaping this season will feel like a step forward.
"Let's just get through it, go to work, see if we can clean it up a little," Tippett said.
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