Arizona Coyotes

What the Quant Says

207 goals, 32nd in the league — fewer than any club in hockey, off 2.198 expected goals per 60 at even strength, 31st.

At five-on-five it scored 157 goals against an expectation of 141.4. Sixteen goals of finishing gained, 7th in the league. That is the only figure on this page that ranks in the top half, and it is the one nobody can plan on.

Clayton Keller had 28 goals and 63 points in 67 games at 20:08 a night, the 95th percentile of ice time among forwards. Nick Schmaltz had 23 and 59 in 63, at 2.96 even-strength points per 60 — the 95th percentile. Shayne Gostisbehere had 14 goals and 37 assists from the blue line in all 82.

Lawson Crouse scored 20 against a previous career high of 15, and Travis Boyd 17 off 88 shots at 19.3 per cent from a median of 17 feet.

Keller and Schmaltz each took 2.71 pucks away per 60, the 97th percentile. On a club that took 44 per cent of the shot attempts, the two of them are how it got the puck at all.

Nick Bjugstad arrives from Minnesota with a 96.6 mph shot and ten minutes a night, Zack Kassian from Edmonton with 6 goals, and Nick Ritchie, who came at the deadline, with 12 in 57.

What the Scout Says

Keller is the player. He carries out of his own zone rather than chipping, he takes pucks off sticks in the neutral zone, and he shoots where a goaltender is not rather than through him — 28 goals off the softest release of any twenty-goal scorer on this roster. At 5-10 and 175 he is not in a battle he can avoid, and the penalties he draws are the useful form of physical presence for a man that size.

Schmaltz is a passer first and always has been. The release is ordinary; the timing is not. What he cannot do is defend, and on a club conceding 313 goals that matters more than it would anywhere else.

Crouse is the one who has changed. Heavy shot, close range, and a 6-4 frame moving at the 97th percentile of top speed — a man that size going that fast is the rarest thing in this book. What is not there is anything else: he finishes plays rather than making them.

Boyd goes to the right places and cannot shoot; Bjugstad shoots hard from the slot and cannot get ice time; Ritchie has a genuinely good shot chart and a penalty differential nobody can carry.

What the Quant Says

313 goals against, 31st, off 2.939 expected goals against per 60 at even strength, 30th in the league.

At five-on-five it conceded 221 against an expectation of 189.1 — thirty-two goals worse than the chances, which is the crease rather than the blue line, and the blue line was bad enough on its own.

Dysin Mayo played 20:55 a night at a 38.4 per cent chance share, the lowest of the 202 defencemen in the league who played 40 games and 500 minutes. Every regular who played with him got worse for it: Shayne Gostisbehere 38.4 with him and 48.4 without, Barrett Hayton 34.8 and 52.6, Clayton Keller 33.9 and 51.7, Travis Boyd 34.1 and 47.3, Nick Schmaltz 40.2 and 49.7. Five men, none of the gaps smaller than seven points and the largest eighteen.

Patrik Nemeth arrives at 39.2 per cent, the second-lowest, and J.J. Moser is the third at 40.1. All three will dress here.

Jakob Chychrun played 23:00 a night in 47 games and took 45.2 per cent, the 13th percentile. Troy Stecher, at 5-10 and undrafted, took 49.4 across 451 minutes — the only defenceman Arizona will dress who was above even, and he arrives on a one-year deal nobody noticed.

What the Scout Says

Nothing on this blue line works and the reasons differ.

Gostisbehere is small and clever rather than small and quick, which is a harder thing to survive on when the gap closes — 0.5 bursts above 20 mph per 60, and a first pass that is early and flat. Chychrun has the skating and the shot and neither the checking nor the blocking, and he fouls when he is beaten. Mayo is willing, blocks everything, kills penalties, and cannot get to a puck first or recover when he is beaten to one.

Nemeth defends by occupying space and is beaten to every retrieval. Josh Brown is 6-5, wins any battle he arrives for, and arrives for fewer of them than almost anybody at the position. Moser is a rookie handed nineteen minutes and the numbers describe the situation rather than the player.

Stecher is the odd one out: 5-10, undrafted, no reach to defend with, and the only man here who broke even.

What the Quant Says

Arizona's goaltending came in 31.9 goals worse than the chances it faced, 30th in the league.

Karel Vejmelka went 13-32-3 with an .8981 and a 3.68 in 52 games, facing 1,669 shots — 32 a night — in a first North American season at twenty-five after a career in the Czech league.

Six goaltenders dressed here last season. Scott Wedgewood played 26 games and has gone to Dallas; Ivan Prosvetov played 3, Harri Sateri 6, Carter Hutton 3 and Josef Korenar 2. Of those, only Prosvetov remains.

The club allowed 2.939 expected goals against per 60 at even strength, 30th, and took 42.8 per cent of the chances at five-on-five, last. An .8981 is a bad save percentage and it was earned in front of the worst possession club in the league, and there is no honest way to divide the blame from here.

Vejmelka is 26 and Prosvetov 23, and between them they have 58 NHL games. Arizona is not going to sign a goaltender to fix this, because a goaltender would not fix it.

What the Scout Says

Vejmelka covers the net by filling it rather than by moving across it — a positional goaltender without exceptional quickness, which is a workable method behind structure and a difficult one behind none. On a club conceding 32 shots a night with the puck living in its own end, a second chance is not a scramble, it is the norm.

He kept taking the net, which on a club that dressed six goaltenders and won 25 games is the most that can be said for anybody.

Prosvetov is 6-5 and thin, and the size is most of what the scouting has ever been about. Six NHL games spread over three seasons, all of them in relief of a beating.

What the Quant Says

32nd in the league at 4.985 expected goals per 60, over 4:14 a night. The worst power play in hockey at creating a chance, on the second-fewest minutes of it.

Clayton Keller scored 5 power-play goals, Nick Schmaltz 4, Lawson Crouse 3, Shayne Gostisbehere 2, Barrett Hayton 2, Travis Boyd 2 and Zack Kassian 2, with Jakob Chychrun, J.J. Moser, Christian Fischer and Nick Ritchie one apiece.

Gostisbehere took 2:51 a night of it, the 91st percentile among defencemen, with 37 per cent of his points scored on it — and his shot leaves at 100.3 mph, the 93rd percentile. Chychrun's leaves at 101.2, the 95th, and he shoots more often than any defenceman in the league at 7.83 attempts per 60.

Two of the hardest point shots in hockey, on the worst power play in it. What is missing is anybody to stand in front of them: no forward on this roster took more than 2:53 a night of power play, and the man with the closest shot chart, Travis Boyd, took 1:40 of it at a 79.1 mph release.

Gostisbehere is in the final year of his contract and has 196 career assists, which makes him the most likely thing on this page to have been traded by March.

What the Scout Says

Two point shots above a hundred miles an hour and nobody to stand in front of either.

Gostisbehere runs it, holds it, and shoots from a median of 50 feet and scores anyway because the puck arrives before the goaltender has found it. Chychrun shoots more often than any defenceman in the league and takes it from the same distance with 7 per cent of his attempts from the slot — the shot is a weapon and the location is not.

Keller and Schmaltz are the forwards who make anything happen, and both of them want to pass. Crouse and Bjugstad are the two men on the roster built to occupy a crease, and neither was used there.

That is the whole diagnosis of the worst power play in hockey: no traffic, no rebounds, and two defencemen firing into shins.

What the Quant Says

32nd in the league at 7.562 expected goals against per 60, over 5:01 a night — the worst penalty kill in hockey, on the most shorthanded minutes of any club. Both halves of that are bad and the second one compounds the first.

Dysin Mayo killed 2:58 a night, the 95th percentile among defencemen, and blocked 5.69 shots per 60 at the 87th. He is genuinely willing and he is the worst play-driver at his position in the league, which is the sentence this club keeps having to write about somebody.

Lawson Crouse killed 1:45 a night, the 82nd percentile among forwards, and Barrett Hayton 1:28, the 72nd. Patrik Nemeth arrives with 5.84 blocks per 60, the 89th percentile among defencemen, and Josh Brown with 5.03 at the 75th.

Ilya Lyubushkin has gone to Buffalo and Anton Stralman to Boston, which removes two of the men who took the hard minutes.

Nick Ritchie finished minus-1.24 on penalties drawn against taken, the 0th percentile among forwards, and Zack Kassian minus-0.79, the 1st. On the worst penalty kill in the league, Arizona has just added the two forwards who put their teams shorthanded more often than anybody.

What the Scout Says

Mayo is the workhorse and does the job properly — in the lane, in front of pucks, over the boards every time. Nemeth and Brown are both big men who block, and both of them are slow enough that the first pass beats them.

Crouse and Hayton are the forwards, and both are genuinely willing. Crouse forechecks a kill rather than sitting in a box, which works when he arrives first.

What sinks it is upstream. This club takes the most shorthanded minutes in the league, and it has just added the two forwards with the worst penalty differentials in it — Ritchie at the 0th percentile and Kassian at the 1st. Fixing the kill starts with not being on it.