Outplayed in Game 1, Coyotes seek answers

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The rope-a-dope finally backfired. George Foreman kept punching.

With a week’s worth of rest, a sustained head of steam and a wealth of size and speed, the Los Angeles Kings came at the Coyotes in waves Sunday at Jobing.com Arena.

They peppered goalie Mike Smith with 48 shots. They attempted 17 more than the Coyotes. They won most of the puck battles and most of the face-offs, and they never allowed the Coyotes' ability to hang around frustrate them in a 4-2 win in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

So, what’s Plan B for Phoenix?

“The will to get things done is going to have to improve greatly if we’re going to have a chance in this series,” a gruff and slightly hoarse Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. "As the playoffs go on, the bar gets higher and higher. We didn't have enough guys rise with the bar tonight."

That was the most troubling takeaway from Sunday’s game. The Coyotes got outworked. That can’t happen to a group short on skill, and it rarely happens to a Tippett-coached team, but it happened Sunday because of L.A.’s ability to rattle Phoenix in its own end.

“Their forecheck,” said forward Lauri Korpikoski, when asked which factor hurt the Coyotes most. “We fumbled a lot of pucks in our own end. They seemed to be really fast on one-on-one battles and win them. They put a lot of pressure on us.”

The good news: That can be fixed. The Coyotes have been in this spot before. Ignore the result for a moment and think back to Game 1 of the conference semifinals against the Predators. Remember the third period and overtime, when the Coyotes' net felt like Troy surrounded by the Greeks?

“We probably leave this game just like we did after Game 1 against Nashville, where we know there’s some adjustments we have to make,” Tippett said.

The Coyotes were able to make those adjustments against Nashville. In fact, they did a 180-degree turnaround in Game 2 and played arguably their best game of the postseason, dominating the Predators from start to finish.

So we know it’s possible. But there’s also this gnawing feeling that L.A. is a step up from Nashville, that this team is on the historic kind of roll many analysts predicted at the start of the season when sizing up this lineup.

There's also the concern that the Coyotes missed a golden opportunity to steal another game. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick, a Vezina Trophy finalist on most nights, was nothing better than average Sunday.

Quick made some key stops in the third period, but he was shaky in the first two. He allowed a Derek Morris slapshot from center ice to beat him for the first goal. He was out of position on countless plays because he was overcompensating with his movements, and he stumbled behind his net to allow Mikkel Boedker an easy tap-in off a feed from Shane Doan that was created by Antoine Vermette’s hit on Drew Doughty behind the net.

“We’ve got to get more traffic and shots on Quick,” Boedker said. “He can’t have a night like that every night.”

Quick hasn’t had many shaky nights all season. And the Coyotes have another problem that the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues know all too well: The Kings' top line of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Justin Williams was the best line on the ice Sunday — just as it has been the entire postseason.

Kopitar and Brown both scored, and the Coyotes’ normally reliable checking line of Boyd Gordon, Taylor Pyatt and Korpikoski was entirely overmatched.

“You’ve got to keep them off the puck, keep them in their end and make them defend,” Korpikoski said. “That’s the key to playing their top line. They want to play on the offensive side, but if you get some pressure and make them defend for a shift or two, it’s not so easy for them.”

Can the Coyotes turn the tables? This team has faced far too much adversity to doubt it just yet. But if Phoenix can’t find a counterpunch in Game 2, you get the feeling this will be a very short series that sours a remarkable run.

“We had some games like this, but not to the point where we got outcompeted as bad as we did,” Tippett said. “We weren’t close in that game. We got beat in every facet. Hopefully we take some lessons from it and we can be better next game.”