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Those lucky desert dogs

Charmed Coyotes have much to improve

By: John Marshall

Posted: 04/29/2012 2:51 PM | Comments: 0

Mike Smith (NAM Y. HUH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Phoenix goalie Mike Smith stretched out to block a shot from a charging Nashville player and watched as his stick sailed to the backboards.

No way to reach his waffleboard, Smith slid back and forth across the crease, trying to stay low, throwing up his gloves whenever the puck came his direction. His teammates cleared the puck after about 30 seconds and Smith let off a sigh of relief.

"We practise that... but I’m not real comfortable with it," Smith said.

His team should be feeling a little uneasy, too.

Despite pulling out a 4-3 win over the Predators in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals Friday night, the Coyotes know they have a lot of work to do to have a shot at winning the series.

That’s right. The winning team may have more adjustments to make than the losers.

The Coyotes have been playing this tightrope game to near perfection throughout the playoffs, leaning heavily on Smith and coming through with the big shot, usually in overtime.

It’s worked so far; Phoenix won its first-round series over Chicago and the opener against Nashville, becoming the first team in NHL history to go to overtime in six of its first seven playoff games.

The Coyotes know it can’t continue against the Predators, a team that plays the same kind of close-to-the-vest style and has a superb goalie of their own in Pekka Rinne.

"We’ve got to be better because sooner or later it’s going to cost us," Coyotes forward Daymond Langkow said Saturday after practice at Jobing.com Arena. "We sit back in the third, we’ve had leads, we just need to be more aggressive. We just sat back and you can’t do that against a good team like that."

A series that was expected to be low scoring got off to a surprising start with seven goals in the first game.

After the Predators shook off a sluggish start — they had a week off after beating Detroit in the first round — both teams played crisply in the first two periods, snapping passes, trading goals and each goalie throwing in some big saves.

Once the third period started, Nashville picked up the pressure and dominated, spending what felt like 19 of the 20 minutes in Phoenix’s zone.

The Predators, who’ve been known to steal a game or two when they were outplayed, ended up on the short end this time, losing in overtime when Ray Whitney took a pass from Martin Hanzal and flipped it past Rinne for the game-winner and a 1-0 series lead.

"It’s not the prettiest hockey, and people can say what they want about it, but we’ve just got to find a way to win," Coyotes captain Shane Doan said. "We pride ourselves as a group in doing that. Obviously, we’re pretty thankful that Smith has been as good as he’s been. At the same time, we have to be better as a group, as a whole."

So do the Predators, who did just about everything right except the most important thing: win.

— The Associated Press

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