Coyote ugly: Arizona on 21-0-4 run against Oilers
GLENDALE, Ariz. — OK, Edmonton Oilers, seriously, you have to figure out this Arizona Coyotes thing already. It’s not funny anymore. You can beat St. Louis and Chicago, Washington and Anaheim.
You’re 6-0 against Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver.
You’re fourth in the league in goals scored, ninth in goal differential, have one of the best road records in the NHL, boast the league’s leading scorer and are top 10 in both special teams.
So why does your record against the 28th-place Coyotes look like the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters?
“We have to try and resolve our issues with this Arizona team,” said Oilers head coach Todd McLellan, whose club will make another run at this mystery Wednesday night at Gila River Arena.
“We’ve had a lot of problems with them over the years.”
The Oilers had a lot of problems with a lot of teams over the years, but the fact Arizona is 21-0-4 in the last 25 meetings defies all logic.
Even with Arizona sinking to the bottom of the NHL and the Oilers finally showing signs that their dark days are over, the Coyotes continue to give them problems at every turn.
After beating Dallas, Chicago and Colorado in a span of five days last month, the Oilers rolled into a home-and-home series with last place (at the time) Arizona and promptly lost both games — 3-2 in overtime and 2-1 in Edmonton.
“They seem to like to play against us,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored the overtime winner Monday in St. Louis. “We have to break out of that. We’ve played some really good teams the past little while, and played really well against them. We have to take that same mentality into Wednesday and play hard against (Arizona).”
Win those two games with the Coyotes, and take care of dregs like Toronto and Buffalo, and the Oilers are running away with the Pacific Division and challenging the Blackhawks for first overall.
Instead, they are 0-1-1 against Arizona, 0-1-1 against Toronto and 0-1-1 against Buffalo this year. That’s three of a possible 12 points.
“For me it’s about this year’s team,” said McLellan.
“What happened last year or the year before doesn’t matter anymore. Those points are gone. The points this year are very important; we need to find ways to make deposits in our bank account.”
The problem, they agree, seems to be Mike Smith. His goaltending seems to really limit their offence.
“We have to break through that (psychological barrier),” said Nugent-Hopkins.
He believes beating Arizona is more mental than anything — you have to be willing to play an ugly, boring game that ends up 2-1.
“They don’t really give up too much,” said Nugent-Hopkins.
“They play a stingy game and wait for us to make mistakes.”
They are preaching the usual stuff in regards to beating Smith: traffic in front, screens, deflections, rebounds …
“It’s nothing that this group hasn’t talked about the 20 other times we’ve played him,” said McLellan. “He just seems to step up against us and eventually we’re going to have to find a way to overcome that and get the better of him.”