from Craig Morgan of Arizona Sports,

As it heads out on yet another lengthy road trip, Arizona is 13-9-1. Its 27 points are good for third place in the Pacific Division, two behind the Los Angeles Kings and one behind the San Jose Sharks. If the season had ended Sunday, the Coyotes would have faced the Sharks in the first round of the playoffs. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you just 23 games into the season, but it means something to the players who staggered through last season’s 56-point nightmare.

“Where we are in the standings, that alone makes you feel a lot better but I think we’ve been improving and we have real reasons to be optimistic in here,” forward Kyle Chipchura said. “It’s right there for us. We have a chance, if we keep playing well, to lead the pack. There’s a lot of hockey left and there will be a lot of ups and downs but we feel like we can compete with any team in our division now.”

The Coyotes’ current five-game trip through Nashville, Detroit, Buffalo, Carolina and St. Louis is their third road trip of four or more games and seven or more days already this season. By the time it is over, Arizona will have played 18 of its 41 road games (44 percent) one week into December.

Couple that with five sets of back-to-backs and it’s fair to say that the worst of the schedule will be behind Arizona until a brutal four-game road trip to close the season through St. Louis, Chicago, Nashville and San Jose.

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