Coyotes Gearing Up for 2nd Half, 'It's a Sprint Every Day'

Welcome to crunch time.

The Arizona Coyotes are gearing up for the second half of their season following the 2024 Honda NHL All-Star Game, poised for a run towards playoff contention after finishing the first half just five points out of the Western Conference’s Wild Card spot, with one game in hand.

Like anything good, it won’t come easy. Eight of Arizona’s next 10 games come against teams either in, or close to, a playoff spot, the first of which comes on Thursday against the Vegas Golden Knights, who just ended the Edmonton Oilers’ 16-game winning streak on Tuesday.

The Coyotes will also face the second-place Carolina Hurricanes (Metropolitan) and Colorado Avalanche (Central), as well as the third-place Winnipeg Jets (Central), Edmonton Oilers (Pacific), and Philadelphia Flyers (Metropolitan).

Arizona head coach André Tourigny doesn’t get caught up in those numbers, though. He’s simply focused on what his own team can improve upon from the season’s first half.

“What’s important is what’s ahead of us,” Tourigny said. “What can we do better? What are we already good at, how can we be even better at it, and what do we have to improve?”

Arizona’s improvement year-over-year is noticeable, as evidenced by its preparation for a stretch run following the All-Star break. The team’s 49 points through 48 games marks its highest point total since posting 55 after the same number of games in the 2019-20 season, which also happens to be the last time it made the playoffs.

The Coyotes had 35 points through as many games last season, and 28 in 2021-22.

“In the last couple of years it has been that rebuild situation, and I think now we have played really good hockey and we’ve beaten really good teams,” forward Liam O’Brien said. “I think we’re there, so why not? That has to be our mentality, and that is our mentality.”

Arizona is led by four-time All-Star Clayton Keller, who leads the team with 20 goals and 45 points, and is tied with Matias Maccelli for the team lead in assists with 25. Coincidentally, Maccelli’s 32 points rank second on the team, followed by Lawson Crouse and Nick Schmaltz with 29 each, and Sean Durzi and Alex Kerfoot with 28 apiece.

Stellar goaltending has also played a huge part of the first-half success, led by Connor Ingram’s 17-11-1 record with five shutouts, a .916 save percentage and 2.61 goals-against average. He ranks second in the league in shutouts and eighth in both wins and save percentage, and was named the NHL’s First Star of the Week for week ending Dec. 3, 2023.

“Our goaltending was outstanding and won us a lot of hockey games in the first half,” Schmaltz said. “We’re making strides in the right direction, we’re going where we want to go right now, and we just want to try to keep building this thing into the second half.”

The Coyotes dropped the final three games of their first-half slate – all on the road – and will play five of their next eight at Mullett Arena, where they are 15-9-0 on the season. Moreover, several key players have healed from prior injuries and are expected to make their return in the near future, including center Barrett Hayton, who has not played since sustaining an upper-body injury against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Nov. 16.

Defensemen Travis Dermott and Matt Dumba are also expected to return in full health, and with a core of players who have been together for multiple years, such as Keller, Schmaltz, Crouse, Hayton, Maccelli, O’Brien, Jack McBain, and J.J. Moser, team chemistry is as high as it has been for years.

That group of players has collectively played over 2,000 games in Arizona.

“We were evolving over the 2.5 years I’ve been here,” said Moser, who has played 171 games in the desert. “It’s a continuous process to find ways to create relationships with each other and build that connection. I think that since I’ve started, that’s what we’re starting to see now -- that connection, that trust in each other, and I think that’s what’s different this year.”

O’Brien agreed.

“It’s always been a close-knit group, so that’s been one of our strengths,” he said. “We’ve grown together and everybody buys in, and when you have that, you have that success.”

Tourigny stressed that nothing will change how the team approaches its games during the upcoming month, and the focus will remain as steadfast as ever.

Even so, just the mention of the playoffs for the first time in multiple seasons has made the anticipation as palpable as ever.

“I’m excited about it, but that doesn’t change the game of hockey. That doesn’t change the fact that the coaches and the players try to be at their best every day,” Tourigny said. “I don’t think there’s one day where I can look at our players and say, oh, they went through the motions today. They want to be better and learn, I want to be better, I want to learn and get better.

“I want to chase the dream, and for that, I know it’s a sprint every day.”