With it only being 5 games into the season, the Arizona Coyotes are already sitting heavy at the bottom of the standings with an 0-4-1 record to start this supposed “turn-around” season. Everybody is asking, “What’s wrong with the Arizona Coyotes?” After a pretty busy offseason with signings like Niklas Hjalmarsson, Derek Stepan, Antti Raanta, and a new head coach in Rick Tocchet, a lot of hype was built around this team in the offseason, and so far, they have yet to deliver the results they were predicted to achieve.
Again, even though it is only 5 games into the season, there is still time to make this “turn-around” happen, but the Coyotes have a lot of work to do before they really make it happen. Now it’s not entirely their fault, some of these games are incredibly close with a one-goal difference happening very late in the game. Even the season opener against the Anaheim Ducks showed massive problems as the Coyotes blew a 4-1 lead with less than 5 minutes left in the 3rd period.
Goaltending is still a glaring hole for this team. Even though they traded for and managed to acquire and sign goalie Antti Raanta to be the starter, he hasn’t been 100% healthy as he has already been considered a “day-to-day” scratch twice already this season with two separate minor injuries. The back-up goalie, Louis Domingue has had to step up and be the starting goalie, but he just hasn’t been able to get the job done. The one point the Coyotes have even managed to get in the standings so far was an overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights to which Antti Raanta played in. The next game that was in Vegas, Raanta allowed 3 goals on 5 shots in the first 5 minutes of the first period. He was immediately pulled and Domingue would remain in the game for the rest of the night as the Coyotes lost 5-2.
On top of everything else, Rick Tocchet is taking this pretty hard. After following a loss the Boston Bruins, 6-2, Rick Tocchet said in the postgame interview that he’s “embarrassed” and “wants to apologize to the fans.”
There has been some light shining into the darkness though. Coyotes rookie Clayton Keller has been outstanding as he has had 3 goals, 1 assist and 4 points overall in the first 5 games and is looking to help spark some offense into his team. Now to bring in some optimism. Last season, the Calgary Flames started their “turn-around” season the same way the Coyotes are this season (0-4-1), and yet they still managed to fight their way into a wildcard spot, so there is still hope, but will the Coyotes be able to climb out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into or will they just dig deeper and deeper? Regardless, the Coyotes need somebody to step up and be that leader to spark up this team.
