Blame injuries, not the rebuild for the Coyotes' dismal, recent results

The Coyotes are setting some dubious records this season. 

With a 9-1 loss in Calgary on Saturday, the team has allowed eight or more goals three times this season, an Arizona franchise record. The 43 goals allowed over this recent seven-game losing streak (five or more goals allowed in every game) are also a franchise record, and they represent the most goals allowed by any team in the NHL this season over a seven-game stretch, per NHL Stats.

With a 5-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Gila River Arena on Monday, Arizona has allowed 292 goals. That eclipses the most goals allowed by a Coyotes team in a single season; a record previously held by the 2006-07 team (284).

Unfortunately for the Coyotes, there are still six games left in this season.

“We’re a fragile group right now,” coach André Tourigny said after the loss in Calgary. “Our confidence is low. 

“It’s not a lack of will; of desire of our players. Right now, we beat ourselves up mentally and we have a tough time getting out of those slumps and those quick goals. Instead of bouncing back we beat ourselves up.”

Nobody expected the Coyotes to be good this season. They’re not trying to be good. They’re trying to rebuild. GM Bill Armstrong stripped down the roster this summer to acquire draft assets. The Coyotes knew that they were going to take their lumps.

But let’s be clear on something: The rebuild is not the cause of the team’s recent struggles. Injuries are. We saw how competitive the Coyotes would be when they enjoyed a relatively healthy lineup. It was only a month ago that they won six of seven games from March 3-15, a stretch in which they scored 37 goals.

“We were a competitive team for the majority of the season,” Armstrong said. “About a month ago, we were playing our best hockey.”

That was before a rash of injuries removed key players from the lineup and forced the Coyotes to replace them with AHL call-ups at a time of the season when other teams are ramping up their intensity for the playoff push.

Here’s a list of key players who went out of the lineup in March:

March 12: Jakob Chychrun: high-ankle sprain
March 15: JJ Moser, upper body, returned April 12
March 22: Christian Fischer, lower body
March 28: Lawson Crouse, broken bone in hand
March 30: Clayton Keller, broken leg

Think about those five names and their importance to the Coyotes’ fortunes. They have combined for 63 goals, 138 points and a lot of ice time. Couple those injuries with previous injuries to Conor Timmins (ACL, out for season), Dimitrij Jaškin (knee, out for season), Antoine Roussel (lower body), Liam O’Brien (upper  body) and you get what you have seen over the past 16 games where the Coyotes are 2-13-1.

“We’ve been hit by the injury bug all year, but it has really affected us down the stretch with our best players, whether it’s Chychrun or Keller or Crouse,” Armstrong said. “I guess there could be some good goodness on the other side of it. We’ll see what the young guys can do down the stretch here in different situations, but we’ve definitely hit a block in the road.”

The Coyotes had some significant injuries earlier in the season. Aside from the players mentioned above, Nick Schmaltz missed 19 games and Barrett Hayton was out from Jan. 6 to Feb. 19 after hand surgery. Andrew Ladd has only played 49 games (mostly due to injury) and Jay Beagle has only played 32 games, but the Coyotes were never close to the top of the leaderboard in man-games lost to injury or illness until the past month.

In that short span, however, Arizona has climbed into second place behind the Montréal Canadiens. Entering Monday’s game, Montreal had lost 696 man-games while the Coyotes had lost 539, according to mangameslost.com.

All of those injuries produced a roster on Monday that included a half dozen players who started the season in Tucson and two centers who were playing college hockey last month. That creates a challenge both in the lack of experience and in the lack of cohesion. 

“We’re in the time of the year where we cannot practice so it’s video sessions,” Tourigny said. “When you get everybody at the start of the season you build the habits and everybody pushes in the same direction. Even then, it’s a challenge but it’s a bigger challenge this time of year, no doubt about it.”

The Coyotes will have to slog through it for six more games with minimal reinforcements. Armstrong confirmed that in addition to Keller and Crouse, Chychrun and Fischer are both out for the remainder of the season. The only two players who could return are Roussel and O’Brien.

“You don’t want to see your team get pounded like that because of the lack of depth,” Armstrong said. “Unfortunately, it has happened due to all the injuries and the trades that we’ve made but you never want to put your young guys in a bad situation. It has been a grind and I think it is slowly wearing on the team.”

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