Recently it was announced that Mike Smith has a core muscle injury and would miss 8-10 weeks after having surgery. Smith is one of the more perplexing players in the NHL, due to his pedigree and the perception he has around the NHL.
You can see the year which resulted in the Coyotes putting the investment into him. That 2011-12 year though won’t be returning anytime soon. He is well below the league average in his last two years and doesn’t merit a back up role either. At $5.6 million a year until the 2018-19 season, the contract is an albatross for a team that should be in a steep rebuild.
The Coyotes, despite Smith’s play, have themselves in a good position in the Pacific division where they are currently battling for a playoff spot. Can it or will it last? From delving into the numbers it looks like an emphatic, no.
The top scorers on the team not only are playing way out of their depth, playing at levels they have never played before in their life, but they are doing it with bad possession numbers too which is a real recipe for disaster. Max Domi and Anthony Duclair are two superb rookies that are shooting at 23% and 31% respectively at even strength, rates that are not only unheard of for rookies but for NHLers as well. Martin Hanzal – who is injured at the moment – is having his best season to date. It isn’t due to strong play but nearly doubling his shooting percentage compared to past seasons. Even players like Boedker who are playing in line with their normal offensive shooting stats are not playing up to their prior possession stats.
The defense isn’t doing anything anything to take away from the team and not doing a lot to add to it either. The defense is sneakily good with players like Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Zbynek Michalek on it but outside of it are relying on a bunch of youngsters. Do you have a lot of faith in Connor Murphy and Klas Dahlbeck? Yeah, neither do I.
So, how are the Coyotes doing this?
They’re riding the shooting percentage wave like the dickens for now. They aren’t getting any good goaltending and won’t be getting any from backup Anders Lindback either. Louis Domingue is now the only real hope in keeping the team afloat. That doesn’t sound like a winning formula now does it?
Many may point at the Smith injury as the cause for the downward trend that the Coyotes are inevitably going to run into, but don’t be fooled. This team is only a paper coyote (work with me on this one).
