Juuso Välimäki and Matias Maccelli drifted into a terrible spiral – the losing streak is approaching historical dimensions | Sport

Just as San Jose snapped the season and the second-longest losing streak in club history in mid-January, Arizona is close to extending its streak even further.

San Jose lost twelve times in a row between December and January. Arizona bowed out as a guest of Montreal early Wednesday morning, which already meant 13 consecutive losses for the team.

The collapse is quite a lot, considering that the coyote pack, which started the season positively, was ranked eighth in the Western Conference on the last day of 2023.

Now it can forget the playoffs, because during the slump, the difference to the playoff line has grown to seventeen points.

Arizona continues its guest tour in Canada to Toronto and Ottawa and from there to Washington, USA. Two more losses would make the losing streak the third longest in NHL history. The longest in 31 years. This is hardly what the team wants, but there are no easy matches on the away tour.

– There’s been a lot of talk about what’s going on, the team’s Finnish defender Juuso Välimäki start.

– We haven’t played very well and then, when we have played well, we haven’t been able to turn games into wins. There has also been a lot of talk about glaciers. When you start with a couple of coolies and have to immediately chase the game, it makes things quite difficult. There will be too many small mistakes, even though the last games have already been better. It’s too much for my own, Nokian Pyry’s breeder continues.

Where is the top section?

However, Arizona has not been in a particularly tough game during its losing streak. It lost to Toronto, Edmonton and Tampa by three goals and to Florida by four goals. Otherwise, the matches have been one goal, two games. For example, the ratio of dangerous goal posts on a five-on-five basis is just under 50 during the season, the average level of the league.

In tight spots, the team has proven to be a collective of the light department when it comes to scoring – 24 goals scored in 13 matches tells the essentials.

Most goals (4) have been scored during the losing streak Dylan Gunther20, as well as Logan Cooley, 19. The first mentioned is a reservation for summer 2021, the last mentioned for summer 2022. The young players would have needed more support from the veterans in tight spots. The number one piece by Clayton Keller the balance during the losing streak is 3+7 and -8. The salary elite have been at the same, or actually even lower level Nick Schmaltz and Jason Zucker.

One after the other, the key players in the offensive end have disappeared from the picture. Matias Maccellin the balance from the difficult period is 0.62 points per match, while the same reading for the entire season is 0.66. Maccelli scored a goal on Monday morning and added another on Wednesday, but taking the next step at the NHL level was also missed by the man from Turku in a difficult position.

It should still be clear that the puzzle has fallen apart in many other places too, if there are twelve consecutive losses at hand. Yli- and Alivoima have been weak and the team’s save percentage (86.9) for the previous month is the second weakest in the entire series.

– When you constantly get into trouble, it changes the atmosphere in the team quite a lot. The racket starts to be squeezed too much and it feels that if we get even one own goal at the start, it discourages the atmosphere a little too much. It was also talked about there, that you have to be better with it. You have to score the goal yourself or stay positive and try to get back into the game through work, Välimäki spins.

New lift, new chewing equipment

Personally, Välimäki has received a great boost from Arizona after the difficult and injury-ridden years in Calgary. Last season, the defender registered a nice 34 (4+30) power points and more than 18 minutes of ice time per game. In the current season, only 11 points have been accumulated (2+9), but the responsibility has still been enough until the superiority game.

Of course, the ongoing season has also accommodated more difficult episodes. In January, the defender sat out of the lineup that played a few games.

– There was a bit of sitting, but since then playing has been completely different. We have lost as a team, but I have now been able to play my best games. I’m happy with how I’m playing right now. If I keep going like this, that’s a good thing.

If Välimäki, who operates on a one-year contract, has received a new boost in his career from Arizona, he has also received a new chewing equipment from the desert. In January Jani Hakanpää the fat hit Välimäki in the face and strongly shaped the chewing equipment to a new faith.

This is still part of hockey, but the lack of care at a Dallas hospital is not. Välimäki and his spouse were instructed to leave for the hotel and return to the hospital in the morning. This could have even put the bleeding player at risk of death. It was only the intervention of the players’ association in the situation that helped the Finn to get help.

– I don’t want to talk about that topic anymore. The treatment was what it was, and what has been written about it is pretty much all true. The upper teeth are saved, but they are dead at the root and still crooked. Some of the teeth are still being monitored, they may need to be replaced. A few teeth were removed and 55 stitches were put in, Välimäki pointed to his upper lip.

The cousin messed up

Juuso Välimäki is not the only athlete of the family to gain fame in the world. Cousin of the defender from Nokia Sami Välimäki has made a spectacular rise to the world’s golf elite in recent years and finished second in the PGA tour race last weekend. Juuso watched his cousin go with excitement.

– You thought you’d lose focus on the game during the weekend when the competition was going on. I had to buy a plus channel from ESPN to be able to watch the games. We keep in touch quite a lot, but in the summer it seems that both are always busy. It’s funny that the cousins ​​recently had to go all the way to Arizona, that we found time to spend time together, Välimäki laughs at the end.