With the top three teams in the West Division cementing themselves into playoff spots in the early, the fourth spot was up for grabs until late in the season. The Arizona Coyotes were sniffing around for much of the year, but couldn’t outlast the Blues for the final spot. What needs to improve in the desert for the Coyotes to return to the playoffs? For a better understanding of the plots we’ll look at in this season review, check out this post.
Overall Performance
The Coyotes faltered down the stretch and fell out of the playoff picture by the end of the season. Let’s take a look at their 5v5 play using our points predictor model to see if their final resting place in the standings is reflective of their even strength play.
The Coyotes performance this season was nearly identical to the output from our model using only their 5v5 goal rates. This suggests that the Coyotes could expect similar results if we ran the clock back and re-played the 2020-2021 season. With a fairly low bar to make the playoffs in the West this year, it’s clear the Coyotes have some room for improvement.
Looking at the Coyotes’ 5v5 goal rates, we don’t see much of a difference between their offensive and defensive performance. While neither weren’t rock bottom in the league rankings, they simply weren’t good enough to make the playoffs. It looks like they need improvement on both sides of the puck.
Player Performance
We’ll start our look at individual players by looking at a visual depth chart. We get this by plotting total points/60 vs TOI/GP for 5v5 situations with defensemen’s stats factored for comparison with forwards. We should see the top players at the top right, with players distributed along a diagonal line from there.
Jakob Chychrun stands out at the best player on the roster and Conor Garland as the best forward. We do see the diagonal distribution we were looking for, suggesting that the players were utilized relatively effectively this season. Chychrun appears to be the one furthest off the diagonal and, despite being the best player on the team, may have been somewhat underutilized.
By plotting 5v5 on-ice GF/60 vs TOI/GP we get a better picture of relative offensive impacts. Players further to the top right had larger contributions to team GF/60.
While Garland, Nick Schmaltz, and Clayton Keller had very positive impacts, there is quite a gap between them and rest of the forwards. It looks like secondary scoring could use some improvement to take some pressure off the three top forwards.
On defense, Chychrun once again stands out, as does Alex Goligoski. Both appear to have benefitted from very high on-ice shooting percentage this season which we should keep in mind when considering expected future performance.
For a similar visual of defensive impact, we’ll look at SA/60 vs TOI/GP.
Niklas Hjalmarsson and Michael Bunting stand out on the left side of the chart with the best defensive impacts. Most of the Coyotes skaters are grouped relatively closely round the league average of 30 SA/60.
Moving on to our on-ice GF/60 models, we get an indication of which players are carrying their line mates offensively by looking at variance between actuals and the model output. Negative variances indicate a player carrying teammates and variances over about 0.3 are noteworthy.
Among forwards, Phil Kessel, Dryden Hunt and Johan Larsson stand out as having carried their line mates. In both Kessel and Larsson’s cases, high shooting percentages are inflating the model somewhat and we should be cautious not to read too much into these results. Hunt looks like a player who may be set for a breakout next season provided the opportunity of a larger role.
Nick Hjalmarsson stands out among the defensemen with a large negative variance. We saw earlier that he had a strong defensive impact and it also looks as though he had a positive impact on offense for his line mates. Alex Goligoski is on the other side of the coin. We suspected the high on-ice shooting percentage may be reason not to be overly optimistic based on his on-ice GF/60 and this give us further proof. It looks like he was carried by his line mates.
The Coyotes had significant contributions from three goalies this season. While they were all competent, none really stood out with incredibly strong performances either.
Looking Ahead
The Coyotes have just over $50M committed to the 2021-2022 cap. They should have plenty of flexibility to improve the roster within the cap.
Key RFAs:
Garland is the Coyotes key RFA this offseason. Coming off a deal with a $775k cap hit, he is due for a big raise. The Coyotes have a handful of other forwards as RFAs that they need to address as well, including Dryden Hunt who we saw has some breakout potential.
Adin Hill is also an RFA this offseason. With Darcy Kuemper the only one of the Yotes three primary goalies from this season under contract for next year, Hill may well be back in the desert next season.
Key UFAs:
The Coyotes don’t have many UFAs up front, and none that appear to be key to re-sign. However, a large part of their defense corps is headed for the open market. While Chychrun and Ekman-Larsson remain under contract, Goligoski, Hjalmarsson, Jason Demers, and Jordan Oesterle are all UFAs. We saw positive impacts from Hjalmarsson in our review and bringing back the 33 year old on a lower cost deal may be beneficial. However, the Coyotes have a real opportunity to find some undervalued players and rebuild their back end to improve the team.
Key Players Under Contract:
Chychrun may have taken the reigns from Ekman-Larsson as the cornerstone of the Coyotes defense corps with his strong play this season. At just 23 years old, we’re likely to see even more from him in the next few years.
Tough Questions:
Should the Coyotes put Ekman-Larsson on he trading block this summer? With 5 years left on a deal with an annual cap hit of $8.25M, there would certainly be some interest in the 29 year old. The Coyotes need to fill a number of holes in their defense due to expiring contracts and they look like they need an upgrade in their top 6 forwards to improve scoring. The return for Ekman-Larsson could be significant and could help set the table for the Coyotes to target a contention window 3-5 years out. Along the same vein, Conor Garland is entering his prime and would be highly sought after if he was made available. If the Coyotes decide to target a contention window a few years out, they may want to consider moving Garland now.
Offseason Priorities:
Filling the holes in the defense corps left by departing UFAs should be priority number one in the desert this offseason. There are clearly some holes in the current roster and the Coyotes should also consider moving older players with value to contending teams to bring in assets that fit a target contention window a few years out.
Check out my other season reviews, such as the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks, and subscribe to catch the rest of my reviews as they come out.
data: Natural Stat Trick
cap data: CapFriendly
