Phoenix Coyotes Struggling To Put the Puck in the Net

In the past few seasons the Phoenix Coyotes have always lacked offense. They have recently taken that lack of offense to a whole other level.

In the four games since the All-Star break, the Coyotes have scored a combined total of four goals. It is safe to say they lost all of those games. There are a few reasons why there is a lack of offense on the Coyotes behalf.

The first reason is their absolutely dreadful power play. Their power play currently ranks second last in the league with dismal 13.1 percent success rate. The Coyotes are currently on a 0-19 run on the power play. That is simply unacceptable.

Head Coach Wayne Gretzky had the team recently in practice work mainly on their weak power play, so far none of that work is showing.

One of the reasons their power play isn’t working like it should be is their lack of puck control. One of the best ways to gain puck control is by winning faceoff’s.

The Coyotes are the leagues worse faceoff team. They have a dismal 43.6 percent faceoff winning percentage. To put it into perspective, the second worse faceoff team, the Dallas Stars have a full five percent higher faceoff winning percentage.

The Coyotes lack any real good faceoff men. It’s too bad they don’t have Yanic Perrault anymore because he could sure teach the Coyotes a thing or two on how to win a faceoff.

Another reason they are struggling to score goals is because they recently have had injuries to a couple of key offensive contributors. Both Peter Mueller and Steven Reinprecht are out with injuries.

They are currently third and fourth respectively on the Coyotes in points. The Coyotes sure do miss both of these key players.

Lastly the Coyotes are just not getting enough production of their star off season acquisition in Olli Jokinen. He is currently on pace for a 54 point season, his worst point total since the 2001-02 season.

That is just way too low for a guy who has the potential and has shown he can score 90-plus points. He is not helping on the power play or at the faceoff dot either.

The NHL Western Conference is very tight especially from the fifth to the eighth position. If the Coyotes can’t start scoring more goals they can kiss their playoff hopes goodbye.