Much is often made of duels at the top, even more so when they involve eternal rivals.
Posted at 5:23 p.m.
This season, when the Tampa Bay Lightning face the Florida Panthers, for example, we will be quicker to program our VCR than for a classic Devils-Sabres (fictitious case).
We are less moved by the battles of the lowlands, even less when they pit teams that only rarely meet. Unless, of course, you’re passionate about the cynical race to the bottom and its corollary – the draft lottery.
However, the Canadian will visit the Arizona Coyotes on Monday.
Anyone wishing to describe the contest of mediocrity in which these two clubs are already engaged is spoiled for choice. After having each played 36 games, they occupy the last two places in the general classification, the Coyotes (8-24-4) having collected a point more than the CH (7-24-5). For goals per game and power play efficiency, same 31and and 32and squares. For goals allowed, the Flanelle gained two ranks, while the Arizonans lost one. Shorthanded, the two remain in the top-5 worst performers on the circuit.
Unsurprisingly, Dominique Ducharme insisted on Sunday that his team wanted to “win all the games” and that the fact of facing a rare team as badly taken as his did not haunt his nights.
“We are not yet at the midpoint of the season, he recalled. Quietly, we find guys. We want to build our game, be consistent and find success […] on a regular basis. »
Ducharme said that despite the loss, he liked his men’s effort in the second and third periods as well as in overtime against the Chicago Blackhawks last Thursday. With these achievements, we want to know “a solid match” Monday.
False start
The Coyotes have never recovered from a disastrous start: 11 losses, so only one in overtime, in their first 11 games. Nothing to make dream André Tourigny, head coach hired last summer.
The Canadian did not leave the starting blocks with much more confidence (3-8-0), but it is more recently that the ship sank to the bottom: only one victory in its last 13 games.
Where the blue-white-red “stands out” is by its gap with the best teams. The Habs are currently 27 points behind the Boston Bruins, the last-place team giving access to the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, while having played one more game. The Coyotes, for their part, are 22 points behind the San Jose Sharks, but have played three fewer games.
Dominique Ducharme declined the invitation to give his impressions of his next opponents. Insisting that his troops were preparing to be at their best, “no differently than against any other team”.
The Coyotes, however, are riding an eight-game streak that, for a bottom-ranked team, isn’t bad: three wins, as many losses and two overtime losses. The good performance of the club’s big guns is no stranger to this: Phil Kessel (10) and Clayton Keller (8) maintained a pace of at least one point per game.
One of those wins came against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a war of attrition that was won 2-1 in overtime. Two days later, the former club of Teppo Numminen did it again by heating the Colorado Avalanche in a shootout loss.
The Avalanche, however, set the record straight in a return game on Saturday, winning 5-0.
Goodbye Glendale?
Monday’s meeting will only have a history that is eminently anecdotal: it will, in all likelihood, be the last visit of the Montrealers to the very little-attended Gila River Arena, in Glendale, that the canines of the desert are supposed to leave at the end of the season.
Note, this could be a last visit to this state at all, since the new amphitheater project in Tempe would have lead in the wing, according to Sportsnet.
Christian Dvorak knows the Coyotes organization well. She’s the one who picked him up at 2and tour in 2014, the one that made him a full-time NHL player at age 20 and the one with which he played the first 300 games of his professional career.
The setbacks of the team on the ice and in the management offices, he therefore lived them. And the moving rumors, he’s heard them all.
He therefore knows what he is talking about, warning that we should not start talking too quickly about the future Houston Coyotes. And even less of those of Quebec, will add the gossips.
“You never know, but I think they’ll stay here,” he said on Sunday after CH training.
The instability surrounding the franchise is not easy for the fans to live with, he agreed, and neither for the players.
However, he himself has “only good things to say” about his former club.
“I had five great years, it’s good to come back and see old friends,” said the not very talkative center player – although he admitted to knowing “only five or six guys” from the formation. current. Verification made, all positions combined, only nine of the players who played 10 or more games in Arizona last season are still there.
That doesn’t stop Dvorak from praising the dedicated, albeit few, fans of the Phoenix area, a “great place to play and live” by the way.
A region where, of course, “the temperature is great”. He couldn’t say it better, as Monday’s game, played exceptionally at 4 p.m. (Montreal time), will take place while thousands of Quebecers will be shoveling.