Chicago Blackhawks Show Phoenix Coyotes What a Team Should Be

A collective sigh of relief has just been exhaled throughout Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

After having been outscored 20-4, humiliated in three of the four meetings with the Blackhawks this season, the Phoenix Coyotes are finally finished with one of their biggest nemesis this season.

It didn’t matter who started in goal for the ‘Yotes (or the Hawks for that matter) or what kind of tempo the Coyotes tried to play, the Blackhawks simply dominated the season series in their first series sweep of the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise since 1987.

The Coyotes are a team in turmoil right now. They were 0-for-7 on the power play tonight, and have now been unsuccessful in 27 straight power play opportunities. They have been shut out their previous two games, and are barely holding on to a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

“It’s embarrassing,” Coyotes captain Shane Doan said about the game. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s embarrassing. Give them all the credit in the world. They beat us bad three times (this season).”

Doan nailed it right on the head. No team enjoys being beaten, especially at home, but the Coyotes just could never find a rhythm against this Hawks team. Their primary scorers were shut down, and they couldn’t get a puck past Nikolai Khabibulin or Cristobal Huet.

They were dominated physically as well. The Blackhawks dug pucks out of the corners and provided a ton of open ice hits to keep the crowds at the UC energized and the fans at Jobing cringing.

It is said that hard times bring out someone’s true character, and the Coyotes are no exception.

Just as a matter of fairness, I am a fan of the Coyotes. I have a ton of family that lives in Arizona, and even though my primary focus and love is for the Blackhawks, I watch as many games as I can on NHL GameCenter, and I am constantly on the team website checking on news stories and roster moves.

That all being said, I’m disgusted with the Coyotes performance against the Blackhawks tonight. The team essentially fell victim to their own youth, and imploded in a way that is unacceptable for a team that coach Wayne Gretzky is trying to mold into a solid NHL franchise.

We’ll start at the top. As I watched the four games between the two teams, I noticed a stark difference between Denis Savard (yes, he coached the first game), Joel Quenneville, and Gretzky. Savvy/Coach Q are both guys who can get emotional, and occasionally yell at officials to express their displeasure. They never make a spectacle of themselves, but do let the refs know that they are watching.

Wayne Gretzky is a polar opposite. Like a petulant child, he stalks around the bench, and anytime something that he deems a grave injustice occurs, he starts screaming at the top of his lungs at the officials, demanding that they come over to the bench so he can give them a piece of his mind. He constantly is grimacing, throwing up his arms, and I even saw him stomping on the bench tonight.

Stomping, my fellow hockey fans. A grown man, a Hall of Fame hockey player, a guy who is supposed to be leading an extremely young team through a treacherous Western Conference, and he is stomping around like his mom just told him he can’t have ice cream before dinner. This is conduct that is unbefitting an NHL head coach and team executive, and Gretzky needs to tone it down, or bear the risk of his players following suit.

Another problem the team is experiencing is that they aren’t asserting themselves physically for 60 minutes. In tonight’s game, they played very aggressive hockey, digging in corners, and really letting the Hawks know they were there to play. After that, however, they completely turned on their heels and let the Indian-heads dominate them physically and on the scoreboard. You could almost feel the air get sucked out of the team when they gave up Chicago’s first goal.

This kind of mental indiscipline (wow, I didn’t realize that was actually a word!) is standard practice for a young team, but when you have players like Shane Doan, Olli Jokinen, and Ed Jovanovski on your team, they should be able to set an example, and simply put, they haven’t done that at all recently.

With the Blackhawks, they have guys like Patrick Sharp, Duncan Keith, and even 20-year-old Jonathan Toews to keep things from getting too heated. They also have guys like Adam Burish, Ben Eager, Dustin Byfuglien, and Matt Walker to mix it up if one of the stars is threatened, the hallmark of a contender.

Ed Jovanovski tried to fit that role tonight, and he failed miserably. At the end of a long shift tonight, Jovanovski decided he wanted to engage Matt Walker in a fistfight. This turned out to be a poor idea, as Walker landed a solid punch to his left eye and cut Jovanovski wide open. The TV cameras seemed attracted to the cascading blood pouring out of the wound, and in that moment, I could see that the Coyotes were a completely beaten team.

After a fight, there will typically some sort of retribution, whether it be a scrum in front of the net in the next stoppage or another fight immediately after the face-off. What the Coyotes decided to do, however, was completely unacceptable and should be addressed by the NHL quickly.

With about five minutes remaining in a game that had gotten completely out of hand, the Coyotes dumped the puck in behind the net and Cristobal Huet came around to play it. Out of nowhere, Todd Fedoruk decided that it would be a fun idea to slam a defenseless Huet into the boards, inciting a near riot on the ice as even guys like Patrick Sharp mixed it up with the Coyotes players.

Fortunately for Huet, he was able to stay in the game, although he was clearly shaken. Fedoruk got a five minute major charging penalty for his part, and the game was played under a very tense atmosphere.

This classless act tells me everything I need to know about the state of the Coyotes and Blackhawks right now. For the Hawks, they handled the challenge of the Coyotes by brushing it aside and scoring goals. They didn’t take dumb penalties, and they played like veterans, even though most of the guys on the team are under 25.

As for the Coyotes, I don’t think that a team that plays like it’s already beaten after going down one goal is headed in the right direction, and serious changes need to be made in order to save the club.

Wayne Gretzky needs to pipe down on the bench, and start directing some of his vitriol toward his veteran players who are allowing this kind of stuff to happen. Whether it be a trade, a tirade, or a team meeting, something needs to be done if the ‘Yotes want to have any opportunity to make the playoffs this year, or in the future.