After Reeling Off Nine Straight….Could the Coyotes Win the Cup?

Jim Neveau, Icy Coyotes Guest Contributor

With a nine game winning streak, a penchant for quality play by their goaltenders, and a stunned hockey world watching their every move, the Phoenix Coyotes have suddenly become what pretty much no one thought they could be: Stanley Cup contenders.

Victories over playoff squads like the Blackhawks, Canucks, and Avalanche have cemented the team’s status as a dark horse contender for the league’s biggest prize, and while many NHL fans are left scratching their heads as to this sudden development, the reasons for the surge are abundantly clear.

Shoot-out prowess has been a key factor recently. Of the nine victories, five of them have come via the skills competition, including the last three. Having goalies who can stop any puck headed their way certainly helps in the shoot-out as well, so credit has to be given to Ilya Bryzgalov and Jason LaBarbera.

Dave Tippett’s disarmament of the team’s panic button certainly has helped matters as well. Most teams who would go down two goals to the Blackhawks, in a home arena overtaken with more Indian head sweaters than Coyotes jerseys, would simply roll over and die. Not these Coyotes.

Twice in the game the Coyotes were down two goals to the Hawks, and yet they stormed back both times and nearly won the game in regulation on several occasions. While the Blackhawks hemmed and hawed after the proceedings about the game not being a good effort by the team, the Coyotes simply put on their work gloves and hacked away at the leads Chicago put together. It was a great win for them, and one of several comeback victories during this stretch.

The most important piece of the puzzle for the Coyotes over the last nine games has been, of course, their trade deadline acquisitions. With most of the pundits proclaiming the Washington Capitals as the big winners of the trade deadline, the Coyotes quietly made a series of moves that fortified their team and solidified their chances.

Since coming over to the Coyotes from the Toronto Maple Leafs, Lee Stempniak has proven that a change of scenery can go a long way. With nine goals and two assists in his first nine games with the team, Stempniak has led the charge through the nine game winning streak, and done so with a flair for scoring he didn’t display often enough in Toronto. After scoring 14 goals in 62 games for the Leafs, going nine in nine certainly has been a pleasant surprise for this Phoenix squad.

Wojtek Wolski has also been solid for the Coyotes, scoring three times and adding four more helpers to the team during their winning streak. The acquisition for Colorado may not be producing at the level of Stempniak, but you won’t hear anyone in the Phoenix organization complaining about the job he has done offensively.

Even Mathieu Schneider, left for dead by Vancouver, has gotten into the act, notching three assists in his four games with the team.  He had two against the Florida Panthers in a gutsy 4-3 shoot-out win in Sunrise, and another one in the team’s win over Chicago Saturday.

With all of these players making big contributions to the squad, and with the Coyotes facing down a tough stretch of competition before the playoffs even start, the big question still looms: can Phoenix bring a Stanley Cup to the Valley?

The odds may not favor the Coyotes, but the composition of the team certainly gives reason for hope. As the oldest adage in sports goes, “defense wins championships”, and the Coyotes are one of the best defensive teams in the league.

Bryzgalov does back them up with Vezina-caliber play in the cage, but the team’s mix of aggressive back-checking and smart defensive zone play has made them the 2nd highest ranked defense in the NHL. Adding Derek Morris to that mix has shored things up in that area as well, and it is a big reason for their success now and potential victories come playoff time.

The Coyotes even lead the league in a statistic that may surprise you: they have won 78.8% of the games that they have been out-shot in. The next closest team in this category is the New Jersey Devils, who have won just over 71% of those games.

What does this seemingly random statistic have to do with the Coyotes winning a Cup? It’s simple, really: it’s just further validation that the team predicates its game on defense and goaltending, and there is no surer recipe for success than to do just that.

Alas, the real bone of contention that most skeptics have with Phoenix’s Cup credentials is a legitimate beef: their lack of scoring punch. Even with their recent surge of offensive activity, Phoenix is still jockeying for position in the cellar of power play statistics with Toronto and Florida. They are also 21st in the league in scoring, sharing a spot with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Ouch.

The playoff inexperience that is rampant on this team could be another factor, but with veteran players like Schneider and Doan around to soothe frayed nerves, the team should be able to keep its wits come playoff time. The swing of emotions from high to low is magnified a thousand-fold during the post-season, and it will be up to these cagey vets to ensure that it doesn’t happen in the dressing room.

Can the Phoenix Coyotes win the Stanley Cup? It has been a laughable notion for a long time that the denizens of the desert would even dream of reaching hockey’s holy grail, but if they can continue to play solid defense, stay within themselves mentally, and use their “us against the world” mentality to their advantage, they may just surprise some people when the NHL finally begins its post-season in a couple weeks.

Tags: Chicago Blackhawks, Colorado Avalanche, Dave Tippett, Derek Morris, Florida Panthers, Lee Stempniak, Mathieu Schneider, Phoenix Coyotes, Shane Doan, Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks, Wojtek Wolski