GLENDALE, Ariz. -- On face value, the Coyotes' 1-0 loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday at Gila River Arena was a disappointing setback at the end of a successful week. But this loss was a product of fatigue, not poor play.
A hard-fought shootout win in Anaheim on Friday took its toll on Arizona.
"That's an awful tough turnaround," said Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, who is the last person in this organization whom you'll hear offer excuses. "That team (New York) is sitting here waiting for you and we played a real hard game last night in Anaheim, got back at 2:30 in the morning.
"You can tell. There's times when your forecheck isn't quite as crisp and your power play wasn't quite as crisp but you try to find a way to work through that and still win and we were in position to do that. Unfortunately, we didn't."
The loss ended a modest three-game winning streak for the Coyotes, but what remained were encouraging signs.
Goalie Mike Smith turned aside 31 shots and had no chance on Frans Nielsen's bullet from the high slot with 2:31 left in regulation. Since allowing 16 goals on 90 shots (.822 save percentage) in his first three starts of the season, Smith has allowed 19 goals on 248 shots (.923 save percentage) over his last eight games.
"He's been great the last few games. He's been the best player on the ice," Coyotes captain Shane Doan said. "When you have the better goalie every night you usually win. Tonight we did, and we didn't find a way to take advantage of that."
All the same, the structure with which the Coyotes played in their own end for a second straight night was a positive. New York threw 32 shots at Smith, but the Coyotes did a good job of limiting rebounds and, for the most part, the Islanders shots did not come from the highest percentage areas.
In effect, this was the model of what the Coyotes want to be each night: a structured team with good goaltending that relies on greasy goals or power play goals to scratch out points.
The power play was the one problem. Arizona had five chances but couldn't cash in. Part of that was fatigue. Part of that was the Islanders' ability to get in passing and shooting lanes. New York blocked 16 shots and 13 different Islanders were credited with blocks.
Part of it was simple execution. Arizona began the season as one of the league's top two or three power plays, but the Coyotes are 0 for 12 in the last three games. On a team playing with such a slim margin of error, that stat matters, whether it's a short-term problem or not.
"The same thing happened 5-on-5 where we didn't score for a little bit and then we started to get some," Doan said. "We've got to find a way to get the power play going again because specialty teams are huge, especially in the West when it's so tight.
"I mean a lot of things were close; we are close in a lot of areas but the pucks don't bounce in the right direction and we have to find a way to generate one, and generate one to go in. You can play great defensively, but if you don't score it doesn't really help, so we need to find that balance and find a way to generate offense."
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