Boedker trying to think less, skate more

Coyotes (4-3-1) at Maple Leafs (1-4-2)

Where: Air Canada Centre, Toronto

When: Monday, 4:30 p.m.

TV: FOX Sports Arizona

Radio: Arizona Sports 98.7 FM

Scouting the Leafs: Coach Mike Babcock’s first year in Toronto is off to a rough start. The Leafs aren’t getting good goaltending from Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer, their special teams have been atrocious and they have just one win in their first seven games. … D Dion Phaneuf leads the team in assists with five; Leo Komarov leads the team in goals with four.

BOSTON — Mikkel Boedker had a lot on his mind coming into this season.

He wanted to prove to himself and to others that he could come back strong from an emergency splenectomy that sidelined him for the final three months of the 2014-15 season. He wanted to prove that he deserved more than the one-year, $3.75 million deal the Coyotes gave the restricted free agent this offseason in his third round of unsatisfying contract negotiations. He wanted to prove that he was ready to become an elite offensive player.

The season didn’t start off in that direction, and it didn’t help that the Coyotes were asking Boedker, a wing, to learn a new position as a power-play defenseman.

“I think it was taking a lot of his energy,” coach Dave Tippett said. “He knows our power play has been pretty good for years and that position was a critical spot for us. It was a big change for him.”

Tippett hasn’t fully abandoned the idea that Boedker can play the point on the power play. He was there late in the game against the New York Rangers on Thursday at Madison Square Garden and he could be there again in the coming weeks. After watching the Coyotes surrender four shorthanded goals in the team’s first six games, however, Tippett moved Boedker back primarily to the half wall.

It’s too soon to say whether that move has sparked Boedker, but he had a hat trick in a 4-1 win in Ottawa on Saturday and he has four goals in his last three games (five points this season).

“Just getting one goal in a game is big because you feel like you’re helping the team out and making a difference,” Boedker said. “I think I was gripping the stick a little tight before. I’ve been anxious to get back out on the ice and prove I could start off where I left off and there are some things running through your head, but overthinking things is never a good idea.”

The Coyotes have received great contributions from young players Max Domi, Anthony Duclair and Tobias Rieder, but Tippett has said countless times that he needs the middle group of players, which includes Boedker, to be the drivers of this team. While Domi, Duclair and Rieder have been successful playing with pace, Boedker wasn’t doing that on a consistent basis at the start of the season.

“When you see him carrying the puck with speed, that’s when you know he’s on his game,” Tippett said. “When he carries the puck with speed it means he worked to win the puck or he got himself in position where the obvious play is to give him the puck and let him go.”

In a game that increasingly stresses speed, Boedker can be another valuable asset for the Coyotes’ future if he utilizes that strength. He might also earn himself the payday he’s missed out on the last three times he signed a contract as a restricted free agent.

Boedker’s agent, Jarrett Bousquet, said there have been no further discussions with general manager Don Maloney about a new deal but there likely will be before January, which is the earliest Boedker could sign a new contract with the Coyotes per terms of the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement.

“I have a contract I’m under right now so it’s not like I’m out of one,” Boedker said. “I can’t really worry about what’s going to happen next year. It will happen next summer or whenever, but I’m focusing on hockey and really letting that take over.”

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