If there’s one thing the Phoenix Coyotes excel at, it’s turning 1-0 leads into victories. They had a staggering 33-4-6 record in the regular season when scoring first and that trend has continued into the playoffs.
“Well, I think if you’ve seen the way our team has played, not just in the playoffs but all year, a lead is valuable for us,” Coyotes coach Dave Tippet told reporters in his post-game press conference. “It’s just one of the traits of our team, probably like a lot of teams in the league, you get a lead, you feel you can push the game along. That’s exactly what happened tonight.”
Obviously, a lead is very valuable to any team, but not every squad defends it as well as the Coyotes. The flipside of it is that not many teams struggle as much as the Coyotes when it came to overcoming early deficits.
In the regular season, only three teams had a worse winning percentage than Phoenix after falling behind 1-0.
In other words, if the Coyotes don’t come out strong in Game 5, they’ll have a very tough time forcing a Game 6.
