Poor discipline, poor penalty killing produce winless 5-game homestand for Coyotes

In the span of five games, the Arizona Coyotes’ home penalty-killing unit dropped from first in the league to 21st.

Dec 29, 2016, 11:09 PM

New York Rangers goalie Antti Raanta (32) makes the save on Arizona Coyotes center Martin Hanzal (11) while Marc Staal (18) defends during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

(AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — When the Coyotes began this now concluded five-game homestand after a 2-2 road trip, they viewed it as an opportunity to at least climb back within range of a playoff spot. Instead, they failed to record a point in a homestand of at least five games for the first time in Coyotes/Jets franchise history.

That ignominious mark was set when New York scored three times in the game’s final 5:20 to post a 6-3 win on Thursday at Gila River Arena. Once again, the culprit was the Coyotes’ penalty-killing unit.

New York scored four power-play goals in seven chances, with the game-winner coming off the stick of Matt Puempel after center Martin Hanzal took what coach Dave Tippett called a “poor, poor” holding penalty.

“I took two stupid penalties and it cost us the game,” Hanzal said.

Before this homestand, Arizona had killed 42 of 45 opponents’ power plays at home this season, which was the best percentage (93.3) in the NHL. They allowed 10 power-play goals on 19 chances on this five-game homestand. In the span of five games, the Coyotes’ home penalty-killing success dropped from first in the league to 21st.

“We started taking penalties and we finished taking penalties,” Tippett said. “For us to do a better job on the penalty kill we’ve got to do less penalty killing.”

New York got a fortunate bounce off the stick of Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski for the first of its four power-play goals, but two more came off terrific deflections that made life difficult on goalie Mike Smith.

“We’re not getting in the shooting lanes enough,” Tippett said. “Both of those shots, they’re wrist shots that come to the net. We’re not covering the lane first and then the deflection gets to Smitty and it’s a hard save when a guy’s deflecting it two feet in front of him.

“We’ve had strings when our goaltending has been really strong and our penalty killing has really done a good job. Then you go on strings like this where everything is going against you. If you’re on a string like that, recognize that you can’t take any more penalties. Simple as that. Those are the things that bothered me… especially from veteran players.”

The hardest part of Thursday’s game to swallow was the fact that the Coyotes battled back from a 3-1 deficit against an elite team. Duclair scored his second goal in as many games, and Tobias Rieder tied the game with a power-play goal off a perfect feed from Radim Vrbata at 7:32 of the third period.

“I think 5-on-5 we played a pretty good game,” Rieder said. “It just wasn’t enough at the end.”

Again, that was due to special teams play.

“It’s got to stop,” Duclair said. “Having a five-game homestand and not even getting a point is just embarrassing and not acceptable.”

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