GDT: Game 1: Jets @ Coyotes | Oct 9th, 2014 | 7PM Arizona Time

[KG]

Like San Jose, Maloney is stuck. Except the players that are under-performing here aren't all-stars or capable of carrying a team. Nobody realized how poor the team was, or what kind of circumstances Maloney was dealing with. I don't think it's entirely fair to lay this on him but the reality is that he may very well be fired for things that are realistically out of his control. It happens.

I used to defend Don, but lately I don't know where his lip service ends and the real, candid Maloney begins. The emails he sent to posters here reflect a high level of frustration, to me. He's not dumb. He even candidly addressed the roster and more or less said they'd need to play as a team or it'd be a long year.

The biggest crime Maloney has committed is not being able to say no to Tippett. That, and carrying way too many one way contracts into camps. This is the second year in a row where he didn't have enough space available and that's entirely on him.

I don't think this opener is a reflection of how the team will play, but the results won't be much different.

Do you think the owners give GMDM a new coach, or does he go down with DT?

 

[XX]

Do you think the owners give GMDM a new coach, or does he go down with DT?

It would depend on the relationship the owners have with GMDM. If they are aware of how ****** of a position they've been putting him in, they might lay off the axe. It doesn't hurt that they'd have to write him a check to make him go away. I don't think that's a bulletproof vest, but it helps.

Maybe Don has been feeding us ********, or the owners ********. We don't know how they get along behind the scenes. Maybe Maloney dislikes Tippett and is giving him the rope he wanted to hang himself. "Oh, you want Moss back? No kids? Sure thing buddy."

Maloney is many things, but he's not dumb. This may be his way of tanking in a way that is acceptable and will ultimate rid the franchise of its biggest obstacle - Tippett.

 

[Grimes]

Good lord Erat and Stone were horrible.

OEL looked like he was too focused on acting intimidating that he was playing hockey.

Smith was playing like those mediocre games last year, not the ones he stole for us.

Yandle's shot disappeared making the rest of his plays pretty meh.

Z was too involved on the PP or being in the offensive in (not even a lick of offense)

The team stood up for themselves against cheap shot and general douchery.

Ganger is a gritty Ribs (less skill more grit) Love it. Only 24 yrs old.

At some point on the third the offensive pressure was incredible/

 

[ck26]

Crap game, but it was just one. 81 to go. Put it in the rear-view mirror and get ready for LAK.

 

[Sinurgy]

Smith reminded me of Bryz in the playoffs. Give up a couple ridiculously weak goals and then watch the wheels come right off.

 

[Mosby]

The one major concern I have with tanking is that when looking at the few teams who have gone that route, it’s so rarely a one and done. Edmonton has been terrible for a decade, despite all their young talent. Same with Florida. Same with the Islanders. It’d be neat to have McDavid, but with falling to the bottom comes the risk of developing that seemingly inescapable losing culture.

I think it’s possible to still put up a relatively respectful season and still grow into a successful team. Anthony LeBlanc has often compared the Phoenix market to San Jose, Dallas, Anaheim, etc., in terms of market viability and how the Coyotes can work if done right. It’s not much different from a player personnel standpoint. None of those teams sunk to the bottom to get to where they are today. None of those teams have star players who were former high picks because of the team's past poor performance – I realize Seguin was a high pick, but that was moreso based on Toronto’s performance followed by a crafty deal with the B’s. Thornton was a high pick, but he was acquired through trade as well. Marleau was a high pick 15 years ago.

Anaheim had a few good picks in Perry and Getzlaf in a strong draft year, and potentially that's where we will be this summer. Just accumulate the wealth. Domi, Samuelsson, Murphy, Gormley, Perlini, Dauphin, MacInnis, Lessio, Rieder. We’ll add another strong piece to that stockpile in the 2015 draft no matter where we pick. Over the last few years we’ve established one of the better prospect pools in the entire NHL.

We should have a more clear idea of our current group in about six weeks or so. This was one game and it's a long season.

 

[Mosby]

The decision to trade for Erat, was also bizarre in hindsight, because we now have to sit around and hope he can rebound into 15 goal, 50 point player, when we could have just never traded for him, and used that money to re-sign Vrbata, who was willing to take a discount on his last contract to stay with us. Not to mention Vrbata can usually score around 20 goals and 50 points even with crap line-mates. We now have to hope that Erat can do the same if everything goes absolutely perfect for him this year. We honestly should have just never traded for Erat, and just given Vrbata a No-move clause.

We could use Vrbata this season, but having him around four years from now would've been painful (the reported offer was a 4-year extension). We'd be in the same situation as we are now, where veteran players are blocking spaces for young players. At least with Erat, his deal is up this summer.

 

[MP]

I've often wondered if I would enjoy living in the Pacific Northwest.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

NHL.com reporting a sell-out. 17,125.

NHL.com, and the team for that matter, lie like a rug.

 

[Tom Polakis]

Paid attendance is different from actual attendance. It's common for others to buy a ticket and never use it for one reason or another.

True, but from where I sat, I saw large blocks at the ends with of hundreds of unoccupied seats. They are the worst seats in the house, and it's doubtful that those seats were actually sold, but people in those sections decided not to show up en masse. The building was pretty full, with maybe 15K in attendance. I shudder to think of attendance at a Thursday game in March if this game was representative.

Not much to add to the player assessments in this thread, other than that Connor Murphy looked even worse than the rest of that awful defense. He's a big boy, and he got knocked around like he weighs 160 pounds. I know the game was over by then, but Yandle's effort on that 6th goal was inexcusable.

I can't remember a game since the Gretzky era in which we gave up so many odd-man rushes. I'm optimistic that will cease in the coming weeks.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Here's the thing that worries me most.

An egg that gets laid like this could be written off as an aberration, a quirk, a bad night.

...if it hadn't been for the fact that the Coyotes played EXACTLY this badly in the final preseason game. And by EXACTLY, I mean an identical style of directionless, non-executing, crease-sieving awfulness that submarined us last night.

In other words, it's officially a trend.

 

[GiveAFlyingPuck]

One of the highlights of the game...

 

[XX]

...if it hadn't been for the fact that the Coyotes played EXACTLY this badly in the final preseason game. And by EXACTLY, I mean an identical style of directionless, non-executing, crease-sieving awfulness that submarined us last night.

Wasn't that game completely devoid of younger players? I believe they had all been sent down prior.

 

[Thor Savage]

There was a power play in the second period where I thought Hanzal, Gagner & Erat looked really good. Generated allot of chances, just could get one past the goalie. I'd arrange the forwards this way:

Boedker - Vermette - Doan
Erat - Hanzal - Gagner
Korpi - Hodgman - Moss
McMillan - Vitale - Crombeen/Klinkhammer/Chipchura

 

[indczn]

Wasn't that game completely devoid of younger players? I believe they had all been sent down prior.

Yup. I suffered through both games live. Pretty much the same rosters for both, and both games were terrible for reasons covered in this GDT.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

The players who are paid to skate up and down for 40 seconds to give the top 3 lines a rest did just that. Thrasher scoring was from their top lines. Our top lines looked like crap on ice. Only Doan played well. Gagner played okay. The rest, despite Bod's and Hanzal's goal, looked like they were cashing in a paycheck.

Our team must have the worst hands of any in the league. They couldn't hit an open net from 10 feet out.

 

[BUX7PHX]

As bad of a game overall as I've seen. That includes the slew of firewagon games last season.

FWIW, final zone exit averages:

Z - 2.00 (13 exits)
OEL - 1.64 (14 exits)
Summers - 1.60 (5 exits)
Murphy - 1.56 (9 exits)
Yandle - 1.50 (22 exits)
Stone - 1.41 (17 exits)

Some commentary: there's quite a bit left to individual interpretation regarding scoring of exits. I agree w/ BUX7PHX's ideas in principle, but there's definitely room for additional fine-tuning

Although OEL and Yandle's scores were decidedly average according to BUX7PHX's metrics (between 1.25-1.75), on the eye test they didn't have a particularly bad game in getting the puck out of the zone. They both just played rather conservatively, often electing to make the pass to their defensive partner (who would then proceed to clear the zone) instead of making a stretch pass or leading the rush themselves - hence the lower scores. I only counted 1 TO by Yandle tonight in the d-zone, and it wasn't a result of an errant pass (he was stripped of the puck from behind by Thorburn on the forecheck).

Thanks for tracking this Pi. I totally agree that there needs to be some fine-tuning to the scoring and metrics.

However, let's say that this one game is truly representative of the season as a whole. Would it not concern you that our best PMD, who has been shown to face relative weaker competition on ice, is rather ineffective at getting the puck from our D zone into a position of sustained offensive pressure?

This is what I have been saying when I think that Yandle is worth exploring in a deal. There are certain things that he does well in about 65 feet of the offensive zone, once we have the puck in there. The remaining 135 feet is truly a crap shoot over how we get the puck to the offensive zone, where Yandle is more effective.

I'll be back in town for work, so I will try and get to a game while here. Maybe we could meet up and define the metrics more appropriately...

 

[IPreferPi]

Thanks for tracking this Pi. I totally agree that there needs to be some fine-tuning to the scoring and metrics.

However, let's say that this one game is truly representative of the season as a whole. Would it not concern you that our best PMD, who has been shown to face relative weaker competition on ice, is rather ineffective at getting the puck from our D zone into a position of sustained offensive pressure?

This is what I have been saying when I think that Yandle is worth exploring in a deal. There are certain things that he does well in about 65 feet of the offensive zone, once we have the puck in there. The remaining 135 feet is truly a crap shoot over how we get the puck to the offensive zone, where Yandle is more effective.

I'll be back in town for work, so I will try and get to a game while here. Maybe we could meet up and define the metrics more appropriately...

Again, my opinion (from the eye test) last night is that Yandle and OEL were playing safe games - for some reason they were mostly eschewing the opportunity to generate an attack themselves via an aggressive pass out of the zone or leading the rush themselves. This changed a bit after the halfway point in the 2nd period, but I still thought they were both being uncharacteristically conservative out there.

And lets be clear, although I am using your system, I still very much hold contrary opinions to yours re: Yandle. OEL had a far worse game than him last night.

 

[Coyotes2000]

The ole, Drop it to the player parked on the blue line when entering the offensive zone crap is still happening and it NEVER works.

This is going to be a loooooooong season folks.

 

[BUX7PHX]

Again, my opinion (from the eye test) last night is that Yandle and OEL were playing safe games - for some reason they were mostly eschewing the opportunity to generate an attack themselves via an aggressive pass out of the zone or leading the rush themselves. This changed a bit after the halfway point in the 2nd period, but I still thought they were both being uncharacteristically conservative out there.

And lets be clear, although I am using your system, I still very much hold contrary opinions to yours re: Yandle. OEL had a far worse game than him last night.

Understood, I figure a lot of people don't share my opinion.

 

[cobra427]

One game, that is it. Smith played poorly and our overall D play was pretty bad. Those are the 2 things that need to be good if not great. More scoring is not the answer and playing rookies would have made the final 10-2 instead of 6-2. You guys that think Tip should be fired for not playing young guys are ridiculous, because this would have been much worse, and the season much worse.

If Smith gives up 2 to 3 soft goals in a game, we won't win, it is that simple. The team needs to play better D too. This is not about firing the GM/Coach or playing young guys, it is about having "no passengers" on the ship and Smith playing well, period.

 

[rt]

There was a power play in the second period where I thought Hanzal, Gagner & Erat looked really good. Generated allot of chances, just could get one past the goalie. I'd arrange the forwards this way:

Boedker - Vermette - Doan
Erat - Hanzal - Gagner
Korpi - Hodgman - Moss
McMillan - Vitale - Crombeen/Klinkhammer/Chipchura

100% agree. Except I thought Klinkhammer had a better game than Moss.

But yeah the Erat, Hanzal, Gagner line looked really, really good in that one shift. I want tha line together for a whole game.

 

[IPreferPi]

I'm going to go w/

Boedker - Vermette - Doan
Erat - Hanzal - Gagner
McMillan - Vitale - Korpikoski
Klinkhammer - Hodgman - Moss

 

[rt]

I'm going to go w/

Boedker - Vermette - Doan
Erat - Hanzal - Gagner
McMillan - Vitale - Korpikoski
Klinkhammer - Hodgman - Moss

Yeah. That!

 

[Mosby]

Here's where Blake Wheeler's face got introduced to Shane Doan's fist