It's us against the world.
It's one of the most overused cliches in sports. Teams, coaches, athletes say
it to motivate themselves when obstacles pile up in front of them. More
often than not, it's an exaggeration of circumstances.
That is not the case with the 2009-10 Phoenix Coyotes. For the past year, it
seems the world has been against the NHL club.
"There's not a lot of times when you can legitimately say [it's us against the
world], and legitimately [we can]," Coyotes captain Shane Doan said earlier
this week in New York.
The Coyotes looked like a decent up-and-coming young team for the first half
of the 2008-09 season, holding a consistent spot in the top eight in the
Western Conference. Then things went South. Phoenix went into an extended
losing streak around the all-star break and never recovered, finishing three
games under .500, missing the playoffs for the fourth-straight season.
Was the team's unlucky 13th-place finish a harbinger of the tough summer
ahead?
It became common knowledge last season that the Coyotes, who moved to the
desert in 1996 from Winnipeg, were losing massive amounts of money and were
being funded by the other 29 NHL clubs. Then, team owner Jerry Moyes declared
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May after conceiving a back-door deal with Blackberry
CEO Jim Balsillie, who planned to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.
The NHL won a bitter, summer-long fight in court with Balsillie, and earlier
this week, Moyes agreed to sell the Coyotes to the NHL, pending the
approval of bankruptcy judge Redfield T. Baum.
"It remains the NHL's intention upon taking control of the club to stabilize
the club's operations and, as quickly as possible, to re-sell the club to a
new owner who is committed to operating the club in the Glendale/Phoenix
market," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.
On the ice, the team's head coach, Wayne Gretzky, ended his four-year run
behind the bench just eight days before the Coyotes opened their season.
The NHL legend was actually a no-show for all of preseason amid the financial
turmoil, forcing assistant Ulf Samuelsson to run the Phoenix training camp.
Those are enough obstacles to derail even the strongest of teams.
But former Dallas Stars coach Dave Tippett was hired to run the bench hours
after Gretzky's resignation and has helped guide the Phoenix to an impressive
8-4-0 record for one of the early surprises of the 2009-10 campaign.
"What really worked in my favor is everybody that I came in and was working
with was an ex-teammate, ex-coach," Tippett said after the Coyotes' morning
skate in New York on Monday. "[General Manager] Donnie Maloney is an ex-
teammate. [Assistant coaches] Ulf Samuelsson and Doug Sulliman are both ex-
teammates. Ulfy ran a very good camp, Ulfy was the guy that really took
control there and did a very good job. ... The group is very familiar to
me, made it much, much easier for me."
Tippett's structured system has made it much, much easier on the players early
on, giving them more defined roles, which in turn has led to some success.
"Winning some games helps build that belief system in your team," Tippett
said. "This is what we have to do to be successful. We've played some very
good teams, and played very well in those games. So you get players to
recognize, hey, if we do this, we give ourselves the best chance to succeed."
The Coyotes have been riding a hot goaltender in Ilya Bryzgalov behind a sound
system that requires a pack mentality. An easy task considering the room has
been "galvanized" by the recent adversity, according to Doan.
"Well we don't want anybody to know that [we have talent]," Doan said. "We
hear all summer long how we were going to finish last and we were a terrible
team and that was tough. It kind of challenges you and I think it challenged
everybody in the room."
Doan and veteran defenseman Ed Jovanovski have bought into Tippett's system,
leading the way on and off the ice to keep the Coyotes stable amongst the
waves of controversy surrounding the club.
"Our leadership guys have really been good on the ice and off the ice, led by
Doan and Jovanovski," Tippett said. "The focus early was to take all the
summer off-ice stuff and leave it there and concentrate on the ice.
"Right now I look at everybody as on the same page. We've talked about what we
have to do to be successful on a consistent basis and when your leadership and
your top players are on board with you on that, then it makes everybody's job
easier. You have a much better chance at accomplishing what you are trying to
accomplish."
What the team is trying to accomplish is the same as every other NHL team:
Make the playoffs and see what happens.
"There's been some games that have created that belief system that if we do
things right we give ourselves a chance," Tippett said. "Teams that play
consistent right throughout the year will find themselves around that top
eight.
"You gotta get yourself into the dance. Then it's amazing, anything can
happen."
Including the Phoenix Coyotes beating the odds and the world?
Only time will tell.
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