Challenges exist in establishing offensive rhythm against Arizona

Dustin Brown played his 200th consecutive game on Wednesday, a feat even more impressive when considering that since the start of the 2009-10 season, he has missed a grand total of five games. Two games were lost when he was assessed a suspension for his elbow on Jason Pominville late in the 2012-13 season, and three games were lost in the 2013-14 season due to various forms of illnesses, according to Darryl Sutter.

“I mean, everyone’s different, but if I can skate I’ll play,” Brown said.

Against the Arizona Coyotes, Brown has not only skated and played, but has performed remarkably well over the last two seasons. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, Brown has seven goals and eight points in nine games against the Kings’ Sonoran Desert rivals.

This year’s Coyotes team, based on the eye test and correspondence from those inside and outside the organization, is that Arizona can be difficult to establish an offensive rhythm and fluid transition game against. They’re among the teams to take away the red line and stack the blue line, forcing dump-ins behind Mike Smith, who is probably the most adept goalie in the league in playing the puck.

“It’s really important that we come up [the ice] together,” Brown said. “If we get stretched out, throw it up a wall with us stretched out, all that guy’s gonna have is a chip in, and he’s standing still. You’ve got to have guys come back together and you still need that chip in, but you need to have speed and support going to it. The only way to do that is coming up together.”

Considering several teams have employed similar methods in clogging up their own blue line, does that make life as a forward frustrating?

“If you don’t do things right yeah, it can be very frustrating,” Brown said. “I mean, like I said, if you do it right you can chip it behind them and recover pucks and play in the offensive zone. That first 150 feet of the ice, if you don’t do it right then it becomes a chip-in to a chase, and it can be [frustrating] if you don’t execute.”

Numbers indicate that teams have ultimately fared well offensively against the Coyotes, who are tied for the Western Conference basement with the Avalanche (though Colorado has played two more games than Arizona). The Coyotes have averaged 2.33 goals per game, which ranks 25th in the league, and, by Corsica Hockey’s count, have yielded the most scoring chances against in the league. Captain Anze Kopitar said that any sort of emotional letdown coming from a game against San Jose to one against Arizona “shouldn’t be the case at all.”

“We lost last night, so if anything, we’ve got to come out and we’ve got to come out swinging,” he said. “If you look at their last few games they’ve played within the division they won a bunch of games so definitely can’t take them lightly and again, we’ve got to come out, look at ourselves, play hard and get it going.”

Finding success against a team that can stifle the opponent’s transition comes from “just making good decisions at the blue line to begin with,” according to Kopitar.

“You don’t want to turn the pucks over,” he continued. “Putting the pucks in, we’ve got to be smart about because Smith plays the puck really well, so we’ve got to keep it away from him as much as we can. But yeah, just coming together through the neutral zone, making the right decision and making good plays [is important].”

Dustin Brown, on whether his style of play leads to success against Arizona:
I mean, I like to get in on the forecheck and you look at their D, they have puck-moving defenseman and stay-at-home defenseman on every pair almost and you just try to make it hard on their defense. That’s the key thing and try to play a north-south game and again, that key thing is getting in behind their defenseman and making them turn.

Brown, on San Jose’s three goals in the first period Wednesday night:
Well, I mean we give up two goals in the last minute, I don’t know if they were both in the last minute but pretty close, right? And that’s a big momentum change, big difference in the game, 1-0 vs 2-0, let alone 3-0. It’s definitely not the response you want and if you look at the plays it’s odd-man rushes against. That’s something, when this team is on their game we don’t give up many of their chances so you just try to clear it up and you’ve got to eliminate those chances against and it’s a different game. But it’s something you’ve got address.

Brown, on playing his 200th consecutive game last night:
I think historically I’ve been pretty durable so I think I had a mark of over 300 games too and then I think I got suspended so it’s just something where you try and play every game whether you’re sick or hurt. Again, you just play.