Darcy Kuemper was frustrated. With starter Antti Raanta battling a lower-body injury, Kuemper was pressed to play eight games for the Coyotes in November and he stopped just 221 of 246 shots for an .898 save percentage.

Near the tail end of that stretch, he asked for a meeting with coach Rick Tocchet to vent.

“He’s the guy that dictated the meeting,” Tocchet said. “He said, ‘I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to have a starter’s mentality.’ It was almost like he was taking the initiative like ‘It’s my turn to carry the torch.’

“In all my years in this league, I just love a guy that is accountable and he was accountable in that meeting. There were no excuses like, ‘I haven’t played that much’ or ‘I’ve switched teams again.’ He was frustrated that he wasn’t winning and playing to his level. Ever since that meeting he has been lights out. He’s been excellent.”

In a 2018 trade-deadline shake-up that saw Ryan McDonagh, Paul Stastny, Evander Kane, Tomas Plekanec and Rick Nash change teams, general manager John Chayka’s Feb. 21 trade with the Los Angeles Kings barely registered on the Richter scale. In hindsight, it’s frightening for fans and the team to imagine where Arizona would be without Kuemper.

Since officially taking over the starter’s duties on Dec. 11 after the Coyotes announced that Raanta was out indefinitely with a knee injury, Kuemper is 17-10-3 with a .922 save percentage (sixth in the NHL) and a 2.41 goals against average (10th). Since Jan. 1, he is 16-4-3 with a .928 save percentage and a 2.19 GAA. Both statistics rank third among qualifying goalies.

Per Hockey Reference, Kuemper’s goals saved above average rate of 10.77 ranked 10th in the NHL, and that was before he shut out the Calgary Flames on Thursday with 30 saves. His 26 quality starts are tied for eighth. You can make a strong case that Kuemper is this season’s team MVP.

“I don’t really worry about MVPs but he is definitely a guy where nobody would be arguing if he got the award,” Tocchet said. “I remember John coming in and saying, ‘I’ve got a chance to get Darcy Kuemper in a trade for Tobi Rieder’ and at first I’m sure the perception was, ‘Why aren’t they getting a centerman? Why aren’t they getting something else? Why a goalie?’

“John said, ‘When a guy that solid comes available you’ve got to get him.’ Obviously, it’s been a godsend. We’re in the playoff mix because of that move and John had the foresight to make it.”

Kuemper had never been a full-time starter in four-plus seasons with the Minnesota Wild and half a season with the Kings. That wasn’t the intent when the Coyotes acquired him to back up Raanta either, but Chayka wanted more than just a solid backup after watching the team’s 2017-18 season crumble in front of an assortment of ineffective backups after Raanta went down with an injury.

“When we were looking at different goalies that were available, we looked not only at is he a guy who can be a backup, but can he step in and play an extended amount of time for us?” goalie coach Corey Schwab said. “He had done that a few times in his career but John deserves a lot of credit for identifying it and bringing it to the scouts and asking, ‘What do you think?’”

Kuemper never found the consistency he was looking for in Minnesota, but he had stretches of promise. He made 13 starts for the Wild between Jan. 7 and Feb. 6, 2014, stopping 366 of 394 shots for a .929 save percentage. He played seven games for the Wild between Nov. 28 and Dec. 22, 2015, stopping 164 of 175 shots for a .937 save percentage. And in the half season before the trade, he played eight games for the Kings between Jan. 23 and Feb. 25, stopping 184 of 195 shots for a .944 save percentage.

The Coyotes host the Kings at Gila River Arena on Saturday to conclude a seven-game homestand on which they are 5-1. It was in Los Angeles that Kuemper, now 28, felt his game progress with goalie coach Bill Ranford.

“It was a fresh start,” he said. “I had been in the same role for a long time in Minnesota and it gave me the chance to work with new people and try new things. I had a great relationship with Billy and he really helped my game. He was able to break down things that made success come easier and things that made it more difficult. I’ve continued to build on some of those things with Schwabby.”

Former Coyotes goalie coach Sean Burke was lauded for his almost spiritual approach to goalies that earned him the nickname “The Goalie Whisperer.” It’s an approach that worked with several goalies, including Mike Smith, Devan Dubnyk and Thomas Greiss, but it’s not an approach that Kuemper is looking for and it is not one that Schwab employs.

“He is a really straight shooter,” Kuemper said. “He’s awesome at breaking things down and spotting little things, even if things are going well. He’ll see when bad habits are creeping in and clip it and show you the next day so you can work on it in practice. If you can stop it before it becomes an issue that can keep your game from going up and down.

“We don’t really talk a lot about the mental game. It’s a really simple approach. If you can put yourself in the right position, more often than not you’re going to make the save. I don’t worry about trying to be perfectly in the zone. I’ve tried to do that in the past and you can’t always get there. If you can just do things as close to right from a technical aspect as possible and not worry about those other things, I think you’ll have a lot of success. You have to be in the right frame of mind, of course, but when I’m trying to get too focused then I get too tight and I go out there and I feel tight all night and can’t play. I want to stay loose, play athletic, but again, try to be in the right positions to make saves.”

Schwab insists he hasn’t tweaked anything significant in Kuemper’s game. He just makes sure Kuemper is managing his practices and getting enough rest now that he has assumed the starter’s role. As for the success Kuemper is enjoying, Schwab lays it all on the goalie.

“Winning breeds confidence with everybody,” he said. “It’s the magic that nobody can really figure out, but as a goalie, when you’re confident, you’re just going out and playing. We’re scoring some goals, we’re doing a good job limiting chances. It’s not as if our goalies are getting peppered for a whole game. There are stretches where we are, but we adjust and that is a sign of a mature team.

“That’s Darcy, too. I think he has done a really good job of making the key save at the right time. There’s no formula for that. It’s just being dialed in for the whole game. We can look back at different games where it was the save on the 2-on-1 when it was 1-1, or it could be at the end of the game. When you’re able to make that save it gives your team a lift.”

Kuemper said better reads are at the core of his improvement.

“A big thing for me is getting my looks in and looking off the puck,” he said. “I used to get really focused on the puck and lose what was going on in other areas of the ice. I think that is part of slowing the game down, making better reads. You get a better feel for where guys are and the plays they are going to make. When you have that little bit of anticipation you can get there a lot quicker and under a lot more control. That’s kind of what it feels like right now.”

Kuemper’s success has given rise to speculation that the Coyotes will have to manage two starting goalies next season if Raanta can return to health. With that still uncertain, however, it is unlikely the Coyotes would trade Kuemper in the offseason. They have experienced the havoc that an unstable goaltending position can wreak on a team.

“Without acquiring him last year, we’re not in the situation we are this year,” Chayka said. “He’s a guy who is really coming into his own. We’ve got a 1A and 1B option right now in Antti and Darcy. We’ll see where we are when we head into the offseason, but having those two guys is a good problem to have.”

Kuemper has worked his entire career for this opportunity, but with another season left on his contract and the Coyotes in a playoff push, trying to sustain this level of play dovetails perfectly with the team’s and his goals.

“I want to play as many games as I can every year,” he said. “Now that I’m getting that opportunity, it’s a lot of fun, but we’re in a big playoff push. It’s a lot more fun to be in the mix and having the games matter, so I just focus on the next game on the schedule instead of looking at the big picture. I am just trying to stay in the moment. That other stuff is out of my control.”

Whether Kuemper can carry the injury-ravaged Coyotes to an improbable playoff berth remains to be seen, but nobody is lamenting the loss of Raanta in the locker room anymore.

“He makes it look so easy in that net,” defenseman Jakob Chychrun said. “He’s just a calming presence back there. He’s going to make the saves he should make and that’s nice to rely on.”

(Photo of Darcy Kuemper: Norm Hall / NHLI via Getty Images)