It’s no secret that the NHL coaching seat is the hottest of the four major North American sports. I have written about it twice in the past two seasons, and the coaching changes keep coming at a dizzying pace. Seven teams already have changed coaches this season, meaning 20 of the NHL’s 31 coaches have been at their posts less than two years.

One coach who won’t be going anywhere this season is the Coyotes’ Rick Tocchet.

“It’s not even a consideration,” president of hockey operations John Chayka said before the Coyotes beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-0, on Tuesday at Gila River Arena. “I view my relationship with Rick as a partnership. Partnerships in my mind are long-term things. I’m not one of these guys where we win five games and he’s up for the Jack Adams and then we lose five games and he’s on the hot seat. He has been steady on the rudder and he’s been through thick and thin. We’re building this thing together.”

The Coyotes had a rough January. They went 4-5-2, and they started February with a pair of losses in extra time, an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Kings and a shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. But they also started the night in a playoff spot despite the continued absence of starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper (out since Dec. 19) and a banged-up blue line that played Tuesday’s game without captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson and his usual defensive partner, Jason Demers.

“Unfortunately, there are some times when things aren’t going your way but we’re not going to play the blame game,” Chayka said. “I’ve got to manage better, he’s got to coach better and the players are ultimately on the ice so they’ve got to play better. That’s how we get out of these things. I’m not looking to assess fault at this point.”

Tocchet’s contract runs through the 2020-21 season, but Chayka said that just because the two sides are not talking extension at this point, that should not be read as a sign that Tocchet is in a precarious situation.

“We’ll address that in the summer but I don’t worry about it,” Chayka said. “He’s all in. Toc’s a guy you want on your team and that you want to be a part of your organization.”

Kuemper isn’t cure-all

Kuemper hasn’t played since suffering a lower-body injury in an 8-5 loss to the Minnesota Wild at Gila River Arena, an absence that reached 18 games Tuesday. He made it through most of practice Monday and the Coyotes are still saying he is close to returning, but Tocchet acknowledged that Kuemper’s return won’t cure all of the Coyotes’ recent woes.

“When you go through a losing streak, maybe individuals start to think, ‘If we had this’ and ‘If we had that,’” Tocchet said. “We didn’t use that excuse last year when we had all those injuries. You don’t have what you don’t have so you go with who you have. You have to take it upon yourself to think, ‘What do I do to help the team play better?’ When you start getting people back healthy, it’s a bonus. To me, it’s a bonus when he comes back but we have enough capable guys here to win.”

When you sift through the 12 games the Coyotes have lost since Kuemper went down, you can probably find three or four they might have won with a guy who still owned the NHL’s best save percentage when Tuesday’s games began. Those extra points would mean a lot in a tight Pacific Division race.

“At the start of the year, Darcy was the best goalie in the league so it’s nice to have him on your team,” Chayka said. “But we have some guys that could play better for us.”

It’s fair to say that none of the Coyotes’ top defensemen has played well over this stretch despite the return of Niklas Hjalmarsson to the lineup. Ekman-Larsson, Demers, Alex Goligoski and Jakob Chychrun have struggled recently. The Coyotes also aren’t getting enough production from key forwards Clayton Keller (one point in his past 11 games), Nick Schmaltz (three points in his past 11 games) or Phil Kessel (three points in his past 10 games).

“The D being banged, that’s one thing that has hurt us,” Tocchet said. “We’re at our best when we break out well and play a fast game in the neutral zone and that’s been an inconsistent part of our game the last month. And obviously, we always talk about scoring goals but the timely goals aren’t there. When it’s 1-1, we don’t make it 2-1 or 3-1. We’re having a tough time finding that. We need to have people step up in those moments.

“Sometimes, I get the feeling that guys are like, ‘Oh, I hope the puck doesn’t come to me.’ You should want the puck. I think you have to embrace the pressure and we’re still learning that. We’ve got some young players here that have got to embrace the pressure and they have to embrace the process of that pressure.”

Nobody is putting a date on Kuemper’s return just yet, but there have been no reported setbacks and the Coyotes insist he is close. When he returns, the egregious errors in the defensive and neutral zones, the constant defending by certain lines and the lack of production from others must stop.

Chayka thinks the Coyotes are already emerging from their January doldrums, and Tuesday’s performance was a good sign.

“Going into the break, we felt like we just lacked some energy and lacked some execution; it just felt like a funk,” he said. “We came out the break and didn’t like our first game (at Anaheim) but against L.A., we felt we were a few minutes away from winning that game even though it was a back-to-back and we didn’t have our A-game.

“Chicago was a highly entertaining game. Early on, we had a ton of chances and weren’t able to solve their goalie. Sometimes, you end up on the wrong side of games where you play well. Obviously, at this juncture of the season, we don’t want to end up on the wrong side of those games, but I can’t say that our team has played poorly in these last few games.”

Antti Raanta stops Leon Draisaitl on Tuesday. (Matt Kartozian / USA Today)

Raanta’s reward

Despite a 42-save performance, goalie Antti Raanta was tough on himself in the wake of the Blackhawks’ 3-2 shootout win Saturday in which Raanta allowed a soft first-period goal to Brandon Saad. Tuesday, it was hard to find any faults in Raanta’s 30-save shutout against the Oilers, his second shutout of the season and the 13th of his career.

“When you’re a goalie and you know that there is something you can do better and it costs a game or it costs a point, you have to be honest and you have to take the blame; you can’t start blaming the players for your own mistakes,” Raanta said. “That’s kind of my style.

“After that first goal against Chicago, I felt great and started to build the confidence you’d been trying to get. Come to today’s game and I think the team made my life easier. Even though they have the skillful guys (Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl), we pretty much kept them outside. They only got a couple chances; usually on the power play. When you can get a 3-0 win against that kind of offensive team that really gives credit to the whole team and how we defended today.”

With Ekman-Larsson and Demers out of the lineup, defenseman Alex Goligoski said the Coyotes seemed to batten down the hatches.

“It’s not really talked about but kind of in the back of your head I think everyone realizes the situation,” he said. “Guys were dialed in tonight.”

The Coyotes began the night in fifth place in the Pacific Division, in the final wild-card spot, but they got a lot of help. Coupled with their win against the Oilers, Calgary, Vancouver and Vegas all lost so Arizona gained ground on every team in the Pacific Division, climbing into fourth place and the first wild card. The Coyotes have earned four of a possible six points on this four-game homestand that concludes against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. The belief is they have something to build on.

“You know me. Even-keel. Don’t get too high, too low,” Tocchet said. “We’ve got to just have a good practice (Wednesday), get back down to earth again and we’ve got a tough game against Carolina. They’ve got to bring that juice again.

“There’s really not a lot of recovery in the sense of the mental part of the game. We’ve got to make sure we bring it Thursday again.”

Hayton time?

The Coyotes sent forward Barrett Hayton to Tucson on Tuesday for a conditioning stint with the Roadrunners. Per league rules, a conditioning stint can last no longer than 14 consecutive days. The Roadrunners play seven games over the next two weeks. Chayka does not yet know how many games Hayton will play.

The Coyotes have made the comparison to St. Louis forward Robert Thomas multiple times when asked about the yearlong plan for Hayton. Thomas was a spot player with the Blues early last season but became a regular contributor late in the season and on the Blues’ run to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

One of the most glaring needs for the Coyotes is for more production and playmaking/play-driving through the middle of the ice. Could Hayton be a partial solution to that problem in the stretch drive?

“He’s got to go down there and play well,” Chayka said. “We think he’s a guy that can help us through the middle of the ice. We’re trying to win hockey games here so I certainly wouldn’t discount it but I can’t tell you until he gets playing and we see him. This is a chance for him to get his timing and conditioning back.”

The Coyotes had a flexible plan for Hayton when the season began, but circumstances altered it a bit.

“He’s going to play center down in Tucson and obviously he did that in the world juniors,” Chayka said. “It was one of those things where we were playing well early on so he was in and out of the lineup, we made the decision to give him some ice time and go play in world juniors, he played extremely well and we had hoped he would come back with some momentum but he got injured so we’ll just deal with what is in front of us and see how he comes along.”

With the playoffs within reach, it might make sense to give Hayton a look once he returns. The team still views him as a top-six center down the road — as do multiple scouts and NHL personnel — and it needs production from that position. How about a quick look between wings Taylor Hall and Conor Garland?

“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Tocchet said.

Richie’s 35th

Brad Richardson turned 35 on Tuesday. With a morning skate and a game, he didn’t have much time to celebrate on his actual birthday, but his 4-year-old daughter, Lexi, made sure there was time to celebrate Monday.

“When I got home from practice she had the house decorated with balloons and streamers. That made my night,” he said. “She sang me ‘Happy Birthday’ and had a cake for me. She picked out the cake and it was obviously a cake she wanted (an ice-cream cake). She picked out my favorite show to watch, too, which was also her favorite show but she said it was mine. It was ‘PJ Masks.’

“It kind of turned into her birthday but it was still a lot of fun.”

Loose pucks

• Tuesday was Phoenix Rising night at Gila River Arena and a group of Rising fans brought the spirit of soccer with them to the upper deck on the arena’s south end. Throughout the game, they sang songs, chanted, cheered and kept the rest of the crowd energized. It was pretty cool.

• Ekman-Larsson (knee) and Demers (lower-body) are considered day to day.

(Photo of Rick Tocchet: Matt Kartozian / USA Today)