There isn’t a showman’s bone in Niklas Hjalmarsson’s body. Every one of those support beams has a blue-collar job, as the X-rays would surely prove.
Hjalmarsson could not have scripted more dramatic timing for his emergence from the Coyotes players’ lounge on Sunday night, however. Moments after Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet had completed his postgame interview session, reporters were hurrying down the hallway (OK, I was ambling) toward the media workroom when Hjalmarsson emerged.
That has happened a handful of times in the past few weeks since his injury, but on this occasion, there was no scooter under his surgically repaired left leg. Hjalmarsson was walking on his own, a sure sign that the broken fibula he suffered by blocking Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson’s shot at Pepsi Center on Oct. 12 is on the mend.
Another angle of the block by Hjalmarsson. Ouch. pic.twitter.com/kFZdk9sNmn
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) October 14, 2019
When the Coyotes announced Hjalmarsson’s injury, he was expected to miss between 10 and 12 weeks. It has been 6½ weeks. The Coyotes are not willing to guess when Hjalmarsson will return just yet, but he should begin skating soon.
“Nik is progressing well,” president of hockey operations John Chayka said. “No new timetable at this stage.”
The Coyotes have sorely missed Hjalmarsson’s steadying presence on the back end. A rash of blown leads has reduced what could have been a great month to a good one at 7-4-2, and the once elite penalty-killing unit has slipped to 18th in the NHL (80.3 percent) without its anchor and ice-time leader.
When they emerge from their murderous first-half schedule, the Coyotes will likely receive an extra reward for their toils: the return of their best defensive defenseman. Hjalmarsson’s return will have a positive ripple effect on the rest of the blue line in terms of minutes and responsibilities.
Defensive depth
Even when Hjalmarsson returns, the Coyotes may be in the market for another defenseman. Two sources said the Coyotes are exploring the possibility of adding a defenseman with a combination of grit and skill who could join the depth chart as a third-pair or No. 7 option.
The Coyotes have rotated among Ilya Lyubushkin, Kyle Capobianco and Aaron Ness on their third pair since Hjalmarsson’s injury, but there is some internal concern that the team is not heavy enough on the back end to withstand bigger teams with heavier forechecks (remember the Islanders game?).
The bottom pair players have also been inconsistent. Aside from the three mentioned above, Jordan Oesterle hasn’t played at the level he did toward the end of last season, although he has been sidetracked by injuries. On Edmonton’s game-tying goal at 13:12 of the third period on Sunday, both Oesterle and Lyubushkin were in position to stop Markus Granlund from corraling a bad rebound off Darcy Kuemper’s glove-hand. Neither played the man and neither tied up Granlund’s stick.
Markus Granlund jatkaa maalintekijän roolissa! Nyt tuli jo kauden kolmas 👇 pic.twitter.com/p5I8bafjEi
— NHL Suomi (@NHL_fi) November 25, 2019
“You’ve got to take the body,” Tocchet said. “You can’t watch the puck. That’s the details of that.”
Alarming trend
Shot totals aren’t the only indicator of which team has the upper hand in a game. They aren’t necessarily even that important, but a disturbing trend has emerged for the Coyotes over the past two weeks.
Arizona outshot its opponent 10 times in its first 18 games this season. After a 4-3 shootout loss to Edmonton on Sunday, opponents had outshot the Coyotes in seven straight games.
“I don’t know if it’s the lack of practice time, I don’t know if the schedule has caught up (with us), but we’re not winning the one-on-one battles and we’re defending a lot,” Tocchet said. “When we’re playing our best game we get the puck out of our end quickly and now we’re defending a lot. We’re relying on our goaltending too much and that’s just a slippery slope.”
It’s no coincidence that after setting a franchise record with 13 consecutive games of allowing two or fewer goals, Darcy Kuemper has allowed three or more goals in four of his past six games.
OEL redux
Oliver Ekman-Larsson has no goals and two assists in his past 14 games. Tocchet has already made it plain that he needs more from the defenseman at both ends of the ice (you can lump Phil Kessel and Clayton Keller in that conversation, too). Assistant coach Phil Housley is hoping that a moment in Sunday’s loss to the Oilers will be the spark that gets the Coyotes captain going.
Several minutes after Ekman-Larsson fell to the ice and took himself out of the play on Alex Chiasson’s go-ahead, second-period goal, Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse crashed the net and got into a shoving, face-washing scuffle with the captain. The Coyotes responded with a pair of goals to take a 3-2 lead.
“Sometimes when you’re lacking a little confidence it can really affect your game,” Housley said. “To me, he’s a very proud person. He wants to contribute, he wants to help the team. I think he’s got to just simplify his mindset of just doing his job. It might take a shift, it might take a practice, whatever.
“He caught a rut on the second goal and the footwork has got to get better, but from that point on I really like the way he responded. He got physical. He had some attitude in his game. If he can play that way, I think those other things will work their way out of his game. I feel like there is going to be a breakthrough period for Oliver. He hasn’t found his game right now but I certainly feel if he can play and react the way he did after the goal was scored, I think things will change for him.”
Pacific specific
Intra-division games are almost as important in the NHL as they are in the NFL. NFL teams play six of their 16 games (37.5 percent) against division opponents, while the Coyotes play 29 of their 82 games (35.4 percent) against Pacific Division foes.
The earned point for overtime or shootout losses has mitigated some of the drama in those games, but they do still hold the possibility of becoming four-point swings with a regulation decision.
Here’s how the Coyotes stack up against their Pacific foes after a 4-3 shootout loss to the Oilers, and before Monday’s games.
Team Division record Points percentage
Arizona 5-1-2 .750
Edmonton 6-2-1 .722
Vegas 6-3-1 .650
Vancouver 3-2-1 .583
San Jose 4-5-0 .444
Anaheim 3-4-0 .429
L.A. 4-6-0 .400
Calgary 3-5-1 .389
Loose pucks
- Lawson Crouse appears to have escaped significant injury despite crashing into the end boards at full speed in a win against the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center on Saturday. Crouse appeared to strike his upper back and neck into the boards first. Tocchet said Crouse was immediately placed in the concussion protocol, but the Coyotes do not think Crouse will miss much time (he did not play Sunday). “It’s not so much the head, it’s just really sore — a lot of soreness around his neck,” Tocchet said. “That was a pretty good hit. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but you never know with these things so we’ll know more in the next couple days.”
- The Oilers remained in the Valley after Sunday’s game. They practiced at the Ice Den on Monday, affording coach Dave Tippett the chance to stay in his Scottsdale home. I had the chance to chat with Tippett after the game and he revealed a cool fact about that house. When he and his wife, Wendy, built it, they embedded three things in the foundation: a hockey stick, a loonie (Canadian one-dollar coin) and a silver (American) dollar. If you missed the piece I wrote on Tippett when the Coyotes went to Edmonton earlier this season, here it is again.
(Top photo of Niklas Hjalmarsson, right, and Zack Kassian during a September game in Edmonton: Perry Nelson / USA Today Sports)