BY GABRIEL JOHN OSTLER

The Arizona Coyotes have been rebuilding for so long that at the beginning of the process, they handled player arrivals and departures via Conestoga wagon. Following their lone Pacific Division crown in 2011-12, where they were bounced in the Western Conference Finals by the eventual cup champion Los Angeles Kings, the ‘Yotes haven’t been back to the playoffs, and have broken 80 points in a season just once. As of writing, they’ve taken 39 from 42 outings this season, meaning that they’d have to average just about a point per game in order to pass that very low threshold.

This is particularly frustrating for Arizona fans, as following coach Dave Tippett’s exit after the 30-42-10 2016-’17 season, it was expected new boss Rick Tocchet was going to be able to tap into the well of highly-ranked prospects provided to a team with a long string of suckitude and begin the long march out of the desert and to the Stanley Cup.

Tocchet and the Coyotes never got out of the gates in ’17-’18, dropping their first 11 games and only winning 2 of their first 20. They eventually leveled off into hockey that was just sort of uninspired rather than fully tragic, and that trend has continued through the present day. But we’re not here to give a comprehensive recap of Arizonian failure. This is to set the scene on why the Coyotes currently struggle, and how that bleak reality gives insight into one of the emerging bright spots on the roster.

Offensively Poor

Of the mediocre to shitty teams in the NHL, the Coyotes are likely the least conspicuous in their lackluster hockey abilities. They’re 18-21, with 3 OT/SO losses and 5 OT/SO wins, so they’re not getting particularly lucky or unlucky when it comes down to crunch time. Their -10 goal differential is notably better than any team with less than 40 points, and much better than a couple of squads that are inexplicably punching above their weight. They’re marginally outshooting their opponents – 1289/1277 for the trim difference of +12. And they have a reasonable team save percentage of .908. For all purposes, Arizona is not a bad hockey team. So why do the results put them on track for yet another a 7th or 8th place finish in the Pacific?

Well, outshooting your opponent isn’t the greatest achievement when you only average 30.7 shots per game, good for 21st in the league. It dips into horrific territory when you realize that the Coyotes’ 5v5 shooting percentage is 6.5, good for 29th in the league. Looking at the Arizona game log, the vision of a team that just doesn’t score enough to give itself any slack comes into view. Shut out 5 times. A multitude of one and two-goal showings. There’s only been one occasion that the Coyotes scored more than three and still managed to lose – November 8th in Philly against the Flyers, where they dropped a 5-4 contest in overtime. Arizona doesn’t generate a lot of chances, but when they do, their conversion skills are abysmal.

Take the 5-0 drubbing of the New York Rangers this past Sunday night. Arguably Arizona’s most complete team victory of the year, and only the second time they’ve blanked their opponents, after a 3-0 win over the Nashville Predators back in November.

You’ll see that for getting off 40 shots, none of the actual goals are particularly impressive. Conor Garland with a half-redirect on the PP; a total deflected fluke from Mario Kempe; a wobbling-puck nothing originally from Nick Cousins that I think the officials are still trying to properly attribute. 5-0 is 5-0, but this is not a Tampa Bay Lightning 5-0, or even a Boston Bruins 5-0. You don’t see this scoreline and think it could be easily replicated.

That does bring the .908 team save percentage back into light, though. For a squad with such a low point total, Arizona is doing a solid job keeping pucks out of the net, considering that they’re only 11th in shots allowed. And much of that strong backstopping is coming from an unexpected place.

Between the Pipes

Much like the rest of the roster, since 2011, the Coyotes goalies have been unimpressive at best. Devan Dubnyk managed a hot start in ’14-’15 and was forthwith dumped at the deadline for a 3rd round selection. Mike Smith definitely…had a pulse. Louis Domingue, I’m not so sure. But it seemed the club had found their long-term solution when they snagged Antti Raanta from the New York Rangers as part of the Derek Stepan deal and were quickly rewarded with a .930 save percentage in 46 starts. Wins and losses are not extremely indicative stats for netminders (goalies on bad teams have worse W/Ls, who knew), but it still feels pretty good for your starter to be credited with 21 victories when your team only wins 29 during the entire season.

5 of the remaining victories went to Scott Wedgewood, who was not exactly Wedge-good in goal. In just over 1000 minutes of ice time, Wedgewood was smoked to the tune of a 3.45 GAA and .893 save percentage. Thankfully, he was flipped at the deadline (sound familiar?) along with Tobias Rieder for the finally-honed-in-on focus of this piece: Darcy Kuemper.

Kuemper was a traveled vet who’d worked his way through the Minnesota Wild system after being drafted in 2009 only to buckle under the weight of the starting gig in ’14-’15 and be replaced by none other than midseason acquisition Devan Dubnyk, who is still entrenched as the starter in Minnesota. Kuemper would play out his string before departing in free agency for Los Angeles, where he would shine while spelling Jonathan Quick. This was enough for Arizona to pull the trigger on the aforementioned swap and sign Kuemper to a two-year, $3.7 million extension – ostensibly to be Raanta’s backup.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that, as Raanta has only managed 12 starts this year and has been knocked around with a .906 save percentage and a 2.88 GAA. He’s now expected to miss the rest of the season. The hope is that the extra time off will allow Raanta to heal and step back into the starter’s role – and Raanta is getting paid like a starter, so it’s likely that he’ll be given every chance to fulfill those obligations. But Kuemper has spent his ice time making the quiet yet compelling case that he should be an integral part of Arizona’s goalkeeping plans going forward.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single team in possession of a good defense, must be in want of a goalie.

The team .908 save percentage is shared amongst Raanta (.906), Adin Hill (.916), and Kuemper (.914). Hill has been undoubtedly impressive in his service, and at age 22, shows promise as a potential future full-time NHL goalie. The difference between Hill and Kuemper’s save percentages is that Kuemper has faced more than double than the number of shots than Hill (616/296) and still has a top-30 percentage in the entire league. Only 30 goalies in the NHL have seen more than 600 shots – of them, Kuemper is exactly 15th in save percentage, bested primarily by netminders on who are on playoff teams and / or are Vezina Trophy candidates (hello again, John Gibson).

Overall, Kuemper been remarkably consistent. He’s only been absolutely shelled in one outing this year: the bloodbath in Detroit on November 13th, where he gave up 5 goals on 17 shots. In 8 starts since December 13th, he’s averaging a save percentage of .925 with a shutout on Sunday night (seen above) against the Rangers. New York didn’t exactly bury him under a deluge of frozen missiles (23 shots), but they generated some quality chances, and Kuemper kept his head in a game that was clearly going Arizona’s way.

The Coyotes as a whole are climbing out of a slow start, but Kuemper especially has found his stride since the announcement that he would be the de facto #1 for the remainder of the season.

Look at his composure in a shootout win over the San Jose Sharks:

After getting blasted with 38 shots in regulation and overtime (while his team only mustered 26), Kuemper still had it in him to completely slam the door on the Sharks in the shootout. In a contending season, those two points against a division rival would be absolutely pivotal. As it is, they served as a nice boon to a Yotes squad that needs two on any night in any way possible.

Nobody’s accusing Kuemper of being the next Dominik Hasek. He’s a 28 year old former 6th round pick whose overall best work has been in relief. But the only time prior that he was given a chance at being the primary guy was four full seasons ago – a lifetime in the development of a hockey player.

Raanta shouldn’t and won’t be cut loose just because Kuemper and Hill have performed in above-average capacities given their expectations and the overall team performance. When the puck drops in early October 2019, though, Raanta will be 30 and coming off season-ending lower body surgery. There are only a handful of lights-out, franchise-caliber goalies in the NHL. Many squads – the New York Islanders are a prime example in this moment – are finding success with a near-equal platoon of very good netminders.

If Kuemper’s level of play holds up for the rest of the season, the Coyotes would be foolish to blindly trundle into ’19-’20 with a clear 1-2 hierarchy that has Raanta installed at the top. Darcy Kuemper is for real, and the franchise should recognize as much when continuing to map out their interminable rebuilding road.