Coyotes must find rhythm after All-Star break

GLENDALE, Ariz — On a night when President Obama delivered his State of the Union address and Phoenix played its last game before the NHL's All-Star break, it seems appropriate to assess the state of the Coyotes.

Leave it to blunt-talking coach Dave Tippett to deliver a succinct summation.

"For us to put a push on after the break, we're going to have to come back and be a lot better team," Tippett said. "We're going to have to have individuals play better, we're going to have to play better as a group to give ourselves the best chance to be a playoff team."

A quick glance at the Western Conference standings finds the Coyotes in 12th place. There are silver linings in that reality, but there are also darker clouds on the horizon.

For one, the top six teams in the conference are running away from the rest of the pack, and seventh-place Los Angeles may finally be putting its talented pieces together.

"They're a team that probably should have been up there the whole time anyway, so it might get down to five teams fighting for one spot," forward Ray Whitney said. "That's going to be a very tough haul."

What the Coyotes will need is more of what they got in Tuesday's 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators at Jobing.com Arena: a simple game with good goaltending, limited chances allowed and just enough scoring to win, even when they don't put forth their best effort.

That has been the Coyotes' formula for success for 2½ seasons, and it will have to be over the next 2½ months if Phoenix is to qualify for its third straight postseason (hopefully avoiding the Detroit Red Wings in the process). No elite centers will be added at the trade deadline. No 40-goal scorers are walking through the door. The Coyotes will have to make due the way they have the past two seasons.

Two other points jump out from Tuesday's game (aside from the two Phoenix earned by virtue of its win). Phoenix has to start winning more home games and has to start winning more one-goal games.

The Coyotes had lost 10 straight one-goal games before Tuesday's breakthrough, earning just five points in those contests. They did a much better job finding ways to get to overtime the past two seasons, and that was a key ingredient in their success.

"You tend to look at the third period and see where we made our mistakes," captain Shane Doan said. "In a lot of those games we were getting scored on late or giving the lead up late.

"But I think we need to look at the whole game and see where we didn't take advantage of a 2-on-1 or we made a bad play to get down one early. All that stuff we've normally been better at, so it's not one thing. It's the details throughout the whole game that are costing us."

So is the Coyotes' record at Jobing.com Arena. They entered play Tuesday with the West's second-worst home mark at 9-9-4.

Some of their struggles are due to their schedule through the first 50 games. Phoenix was rarely home for more than a couple days before embarking on another road trip.

"You don't get much feel for home ice and then you look at a crowd like tonight," Whitney said. "You're playing Ottawa on a Tuesday night and half of the building is empty so you're not really getting an advantage."

Doan said there are more subtle effects from those quick home visits.

"It's not an excuse for our record, but the thing about coming home from a long road trip and then having another long road trip right after that is you've got three days at home to accomplish everything you need to in three weeks for your wife, for your kids and for other things," he said. "That, in itself, is tiring, trying to jam everything in in a weekend instead of being home and getting back into a rhythm."

The Coyotes will have their chance to find that rhythm. They play 18 of their final 32 games at home, including three straight after the break and five of their first six.

"A lot of teams have been going north while we're going south," Whitney said. "We're not in the spot we want to be, but in terms of scheduling, we're finally going in the right direction. It's not going to be easy, but we need to make a run here at home."