Coyotes’ season ends with playoff elimination to Avalanche

The Arizona Coyotes didn’t get the bounce-back they wanted or needed. One lopsided loss was followed by another. And with that loss, their 2019-20 season is over.

After losing 7-1 on Monday, head coach Rick Tocchet used the word “embarrassed” a number of times. In a series in which the Coyotes once looked competitive, they suddenly looked drastically outmatched. Tocchet complained that the goaltenders were hung out to dry. And on Wednesday, the story was deja vu. Arizona lost 7-1 again.

“We had a couple of guys playing hurt, [but] there’s no excuses,” Tocchet said. “We were overmatched. For this game, you take three penalties right off the bat. You can’t do that against Colorado. What’s frustrating is they’re just not smart penalties. We knew we had to get a good start. We had no answer for [Nathan] MacKinnon the whole series and we collectively had a bunch of guys that just did not play well.

“Quite frankly, I’m not sure where their minds were. But I’m not going to hammer them because they’ve chipped away at some stuff. For about a week here, we had a tough time. We had some guys on fumes, some guys were playing hurt, but that’s not an excuse. That’s a heck of a team over there. That line is incredible. You’ve got to be on your game to defend that line.”

In the first period, a breakout pass up to the neutral zone was tipped and soon turned over. Defensemen skated up and were found of position. Nazem Kadri scored a breakaway goal to make it 3-0, his second goal of the game, and the series felt like it was all but over. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper, usually quick to give a smile and deflect praise to his teammates, slammed his stick onto the crossbar in frustration.

Arizona lost the series by a score of 4-1.

Things certainly took a turn in Games 4 and 5, and the scoreboard showed it. In those two games, the Avalanche went 6-for-11 on the power play. Before that, Colorado’s power play was only 1-for-9 in the first three games. On Wednesday, Arizona took three first-period penalties and Colorado scored on two of them.

“You can’t explain some of the stuff that happens early, the penalties,” Tocchet said in response to a question about leadership. “I don’t understand a few. You warn the team you’ve got to stay out of the box. Two really good referees. They want to let you play. They let you play, and you take dumb penalties. They’re lethal as it is — the worst thing to do is to give them three power plays in the first five or six minutes.

“You just can’t do it, and we did. And if we had any hope to win the game, that was a surefire way not to win a game.”

The Coyotes’ reality could never simultaneously be asking Kuemper to put the team on his back and also advancing past Colorado. The details of the game had to be there, and forward Derek Stepan acknowledged the Coyotes didn’t always do that against the Avalanche. The blowout led Tocchet to pulling Kuemper in the third period in each of the last two games, replacing him with Antti Raanta.

“He’s been incredible,” Tocchet said of Kuemper. “I felt terrible to pull him. I didn’t want to pull him, but I’m not going to let him sit out there. He deserves better than that. Kuemps is one star we do have.”

During the regular season this year, the Coyotes allowed seven goals to their opponent only twice in 70 games. Arizona managed to do it twice in a row in this series.

“It stinks,” Stepan said. “Any time you lose, it’s never fun, but just the way it went down, it’s going to be sour for a while, and I hope that’s maybe some fuel going into next season. But any time you lose, no matter if you lose 2-1 or 7-1, it still stings, but this one leaves a little bit of a bitter taste.”

This year was the first time the Coyotes were in the playoffs since 2011-12, when they went all the way to the Western Conference Final but lost to the LA Kings. The only play from that Coyotes team still with the franchise is Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who rejected the notion that a lack of response in Game 5 reflected poorly on the leadership group. Stepan seemed to scoff quietly at the question.

“No,” Ekman-Larsson said. “I’m proud of the guys. I thought since Day 1 we started training camp, everybody bought in and really wanted to be here. If you want, I’ll take the blame for that.”

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