COYOTES SPEED UP FRONT GAVE PENGUINS ISSUES

The Arizona Coyotes a projected bottom-5 team have put up two impressive wins to start the season in beating the Los Angeles Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins in back-to-back nights.

What transpired tonight was the Coyotes youth and speed giving the Penguins a lot of problems through the first forty minutes of the game.

“First 10 minutes they [Arizona Coyotes] were unbelievable,” Patric Hornqvist told reporters afterwards.

Arizona was all over the Penguins to start the game and Marc Andre Fleury stood tall or the Penguins easily could have been down a couple goals early.

“We have to be ready for the first shift to last shift,” Hornqvist said. “Something we have to correct.”

Mike Johnston after the game expressed disappointment in the Penguins poor start.

“We know that’s a staple of their game,” said Johnston of the Coyotes being a hard working team. “We lost too many puck battles. The competitive work ethic, they edged us in that category probably up until late in the second period. After that, we started to push….You don’t let your guard down in this league,” said Johnston.

Hornqvist’s theory to correcting it, — “get out the working boots” —

— Dallas and Arizona are two quick teams. The Penguins struggles to deal with teams that have lots of speed is going to be an area to watch moving forward. Has been a red flag so far.

All three goals in the game were scored in the second period, a span of 2:29.

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— The Penguins were out-shot 39-28 in the game, and were -26 in shot attempts (79-53 edge Coyotes) but Pittsburgh created more scoring chances in the high percentage scoring areas, though, most of those chances didn’t come until the third period when the Coyotes looked to be running out of gas during the early portion of the third till the middle of the period.

It was a positive from one standpoint but on the other end, the Penguins were stagnant until after forty minutes when the Coyotes started to sit back in the third.

“[We] took way too long to generate those chances,” Sidney Crosby told reporters…”He [Mike Smith] played well, but I don’t think we did a whole lot those first two periods to test him,” Crosby said of the Penguins taking too long to get going.

I’m sure the bad luck narrative will be out there from some because of three to four excellent saves from Smith in the third period but it evens out as Fleury played a big role in the Coyotes not putting up a four or five goal night.

Sidney Crosby has no shots through two games and just one shot attempt. The Crosby line spent more time in their own end than the Coyotes end.

At even strength Crosby was on the ice for just 12 shot attempts and 23 against. Phil Kessel near [hide] identical numbers, on the ice for 13 shot attempts, 23 against 5 v 5.

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