The injuries have been ridiculous. Goalie Antti Raanta has missed 65 games with a lower-body injury, forward Christian Dvorak 62 (upper-body injury), defenseman Jason Demers 46 (lower-body injury), forward Nick Schmaltz 42 (lower-body injury), forward Michael Grabner 41 (upper-body injury), and so on.
"I've never seen something quite like this," said center Derek Stepan, who missed 10 games in March because of a lower-body injury.
Yet since Jan. 6, the Coyotes have gone 22-13-5. Their 49 points in that span rank eighth in the NHL. They have gone 10-2-1 in their past 13 home games, energizing Gila River Arena.
"So proud of the guys," defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. "I mean, with what we have been through with injuries and everything and to still be around there when it's two games left, it says a lot about this team. Bright future ahead of us.
"But now we know what it takes to win in this League. And obviously we're not there right now, but hopefully it's something that we can build off and come back next year."
Goalie Darcy Kuemper was a huge reason the Coyotes were in the race. Since Jan. 6, he has gone 22-9-5 with a 2.06 goals-against average, a .933 save percentage and five shutouts. During that span, he's third in save percentage, fourth in GAA, tied for second in shutouts and third in wins.
For the season the Coyotes rank fifth in the NHL defensively (2.67 goals-against per game) and first in penalty killing (85.3 percent).
But they're 29th offensively (2.56 goals per game) and 26th on the power play (16.1 percent). No one has reached 20 goals or 50 points.
"As a group we defend extremely hard," Stepan said. "That's not an issue. We've got to find ways to score goals, and we've got to continue to work on your skills. There's a good chunk of hockey where we were playing well, but we were losing because we couldn't score goals."