Rick Tocchet calls his defense corps the heartbeat of the Coyotes. The unit helped stabilize the team through an epidemic of injuries last season, and its eight principle members were a major factor – perhaps even more than goalie Darcy Kuemper – in Arizona finishing tied with Eastern Conference finalist Carolina and Stanley Cup champion St. Louis for the sixth-fewest goals allowed in the NHL.

“We put a lot of pressure on them,” the Coyotes coach said. “Because of our injuries, we had to manage the puck really well and maybe didn’t gamble as much. We stuck to that mantra and it kept us in games so I give them a lot of credit for that.”

While the blue line helped the Coyotes maintain a playoff pulse until the 81st game of the 2018-19 season, the group must pump a little more blood into the Arizona offense. Per CapFriendly, the Coyotes blue line carries the second-highest cap hit of any team in the league at $29,536,625 (36.2 percent of the team’s total cap hit), but Arizona’s production is not meeting the expectations created by that number.

Last season, only Anaheim (23), Vancouver (27), Los Angeles (28), San Jose (28), Edmonton (30) and the New York Islanders (30) had fewer goals from their defensemen than the Coyotes, who were tied with Boston and New Jersey at 31. Only Anaheim (125), Los Angeles (129) and Vancouver (135) had fewer points from their defensemen than the Coyotes, who were tied with Edmonton at 141, and miles behind NHL leaders San Jose (221), Tampa Bay (207), Calgary (198) and Nashville (197).

“The pucks just weren’t going in for us last year,” defenseman Jason Demers said. “We had the looks and I thought we created the chances, but it was about adding players on our team that could finish and improving our product on the back end; taking accountability for that on the back end and finishing our chances.

“We played defensive and there were so many injuries that we were forced to, but for the most part during the season, we directed the pace of the game and the scoring chances. It’s just that once you get behind the eight ball and it has been 20, 30 games of not scoring, you tense up a little bit and you might force things you wouldn’t normally force or look for the perfect play when the perfect play is just getting it to the net.”

The aforementioned injuries had an impact on production in a couple of ways. As Tocchet and Demers noted, the depleted roster forced the Coyotes to play a more conservative, risk-averse style to stay in games, and at various points, the injuries removed some of the best offensive options for the puck movers, including forwards Alex Galchenyuk, Nick Schmaltz, Michael Grabner, Christian Dvorak, Derek Stepan and co-goals leader Brad Richardson.

The defensive unit also suffered from the absence of Demers for all but 35 games due to a knee injury, and the absence of Jakob Chychrun for 29 games due to offseason ACL surgery and a subsequent shoulder injury. Even so, three of the Coyotes’ top four defenseman (Alex Goligoski, Demers and Niklas Hjalmarsson) finished below their career averages for goals and points per game, and captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson did not take a step into the 50-plus point range that often defines elite offensive defensemen.

Player 2018-19 goals per game Career goals per game 2018-19 assists per game Career assists per game 2018-19 points per game Career points per game Oliver Ekman-Larsson 0.177 0.172 0.37 0.331 0.543 0.501 Jason Demers 0.057 0.074 0.171 0.253 0.229 0.327 Alex Goligoski 0.039 0.095 0.316 0.375 0.355 0.47 Niklas Hjalmarsson 0 0.032 0.122 0.183 0.122 0.398 Jakob Chychrun 0.094 0.094 0.283 0.222 0.377 0.316 Jordan Oesterle 0.085 0.073 0.198 0.199 0.282 0.272

“By being healthier and acquiring a few more guys like (Phil) Kessel and (Carl) Soderberg, I think we can get a little more offensively from them in the sense of joining the rush and getting the puck up quick to the forwards,” Tocchet said. “Our forwards have to do their part. When our D get the puck up to them and put them in good situations, they’ve got to convert on those opportunities, but definitely, I could see this defense group producing more.”

That’s where new assistant coach Phil Housley could play a major role. In a 1,495-game career, Housley amassed the fourth most goals (338) and points (1,232) by a defenseman in NHL history. He also shepherded a young Nashville blue line from prominence to NHL preeminence in his four seasons as an assistant coach in charge of that unit from 2013-17.

The year before Housley arrived in Nashville, the Predators’ emerging blue line had 20 goals and 81 points in the lockout-shortened, 48-game season, which translates to 34 goals and 138 points over a full season. In the four seasons Housley coached the Predators’ corps of Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm and first Shea Weber, then P.K. Subban, Nashville put up elite numbers.

Predators’ blue line production in Housley’s four seasons in Nashville

2013-14: 52 goals, 171 points

2014-15: 55 goals, 193 points

2015-16: 55 goals, 203 points

2016-17: 45 goals, 181 points

“When you look at the teams that had success in the playoffs the last few years, you see how important it is that your blue line is active,” Housley said. “It’s a five-man attack now. It’s not just the D retrieving the puck and breaking it out.

“It’s not as if I’m going to reinvent the wheel here. We have to allow these guys to play and make decisions and make plays and they’re going to be hearing a new voice so I’ll have to create new relationships. That will take some time but I think you’ll see in (training) camp some ways we can add our D to the offensive scheme of our game plan.”

Housley offered a few thoughts.

“Mainly the weak-side D, if he can beat his guy up the ice, he can add to the rush,” he said. “Most teams are trying to do it. It’s just about your timing and trying to pick your spots; knowing when to jump into a hole and when to back off a little bit.

“There’s a number of other ways you can try to add to the offense. For me, the biggest is in the offensive zone and the cycling part of it. Sometimes, you’re going to see a defenseman below the goal line, which is uncommon, but if everybody is thinking alike and protecting each other and covering for each other, there’s no reason why our D cannot get more involved in the offensive zone. That’s one of the ways we can build on what they did last year.”

Last season, Tocchet harped on the need for his defensemen to get more pucks through to the net, but there is a symbiotic relationship with the forwards in that regard, too.

“I do think we can do a better job on the blue line of getting pucks through, but I think we have to be a better team in getting more people to the net,” Tocchet said. “Teams that go far in the playoffs, their forwards get to the net really quickly. Sometimes our D are looking for the perfect play too much, but sometimes they’re waiting for the forwards to get to the net and by the time they make a decision, a shot gets blocked or deflected to the side. It’s a two-way street, but we do have the potential with our D to walk the blue line well and get shots through.”

When assessing the individual performances of the blue line, the low goals against and shots against (30.8), and the effectiveness of the penalty-killing unit (tied for first at 85 percent) must be emphasized, but Tocchet noted recently that Hjalmarsson was the only defenseman on the team who had a consistent season from start to finish.

“Nik really embraced the role of a penalty killer and shut-down defender,” Tocchet said.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Photo: Michael Martin / NHLI via Getty Images

Tocchet called Ekman-Larsson “a beast” over the final 30 games, but he would like to see that over an entire season. Ilya Lyubushkin will benefit from his first season of North American hockey. Demers and Chychrun will benefit simply from being healthy. Chychrun wasn’t able to take part in training camp, which set him back for much of the season. So did the ACL surgery, which created expected issues throughout the season that have now subsided.

“They had to take another part of my body and make that into a new ACL,” Chychrun explained late last season. “Taking that piece of patellar tendon, it can get really sore.

“It’s completely natural to have that. It’s the biggest side effect for the graft they use. The patellar graft they say is strongest, but it has a couple downsides, one of which is tendinitis. It’s something you live with. They say it takes a good year so this offseason it should really calm down, but when you go into playing right away at seven months, it doesn’t give it a full year to relax so it’s going to be pissed off a little until I’m able to give it a good break with time off.”

Tocchet is intrigued by what Jordan Oesterle might provide after a career year in games played, goals and points.

“He does what I have always envisioned I want our D to do,” Tocchet said. “In our team concepts, we want our D to jump up into the play and be that fourth guy and he’s really good at that. When we got him, some of the talk was he wasn’t a good defender. I thought he really chipped away and got better at that.”

Perhaps the player in biggest need of a bounce-back season is Goligoski, 33, who has two years left on a contract with a cap hit of $5.475 million. His goal and point totals represented career lows for a full season, although his role was different at times, playing alongside Hjalmarsson and logging less power-play time.

“When you’re playing under different circumstances you tend to hold back a little bit because you don’t want to be a defensive liability,” Housley said. “I think Alex is a tremendous skater and a very smart hockey player, he can read situations well and he can beat a forecheck with his skating ability. The next step is not necessarily to be risky but go for it, get on the attack. He has some great abilities and I think he can add to the offense. Even in a shutdown role, you can be productive offensively.”

Tocchet believes Housley has the street cred from his playing career and years in Nashville to push the Coyotes’ well-paid blue line to greater heights. It is one of the key reasons he chose to hire him and move on from Scott Allen, who coached the unit the past two seasons.

The players also see room for improvement.

“I think we can definitely improve offensively,” Demers said. “Now that we have all figured out the defensive side and have established our identity, I think we can kind of loosen the reins a bit. Our forwards have taken a lot of pride in getting back and helping out on the defensive side so now it’s on us to reward them and help produce a little more offense.”

(Photo of Alex Goligoski: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today Sports)