With another week now in the books, it’s time for another Arizona Coyotes weekly recap. After what seemed like an improving team last week, is everything but the opposite this week. Playing Sunday against the Vegas Golden Knights in Vegas, the Coyotes were looking to get their first win against the Knights since their arrival in the league. The game would get off to a very slow start, but Golden Knight’s Alex Tuch, scored on a break way goal early in the second period. The Coyotes would answer back with a goal coming from the returning defenseman Jakob Chychrun to tie the game at 1. Jonathan Marchessault would put the Knights back on top 2-1 just 18 seconds into the third. The Coyotes would answer back again with a broken-play-goal from Derek Stepan as the Coyotes just crashed the net hoping the puck would squeak in. The game would require overtime where the Golden Knights would win from a goal from Reilly Smith. A point is a point in this league and the Coyotes would take it. They would get the next three days off as they travelled to Boston to take on the Bruins.
This game was anything but pretty for the Yotes as they allowed a goal from Brad Marchand just 15 seconds into the game. The Coyotes would tie the game at 1 with a terrific goal from Christian Dvorak as he stole the puck away and back-handed one into the net. That would conclude the 1st period. By the 2nd period, it was all Boston. With two goals coming from David Backes, Boston would have a 3-1 lead over the Coyotes and by the end of the 3rd period, David Krejci, Danton Heinen, and Anders Bjork would score making it a 6-1 victory. A game the Coyotes would want to forget they would travel on to Columbus next.
A repeating problem seems to be a reoccurring event with the Coyotes: letting in early goals. This event would only continue as Josh Anderson scored just 30 seconds into the game to put the Blue Jackets up 1-0. The rest of the game would be a defensive battle from Columbus followed by a series of offensive attacks from Arizona, even a shot bouncing off the cross bar from a wicked shot from Clayton Keller which would’ve tied the game, but Blue Jackets’ goalie Sergei Bobrovsky stood tall posting a shutout win. The game was pretty close as each team got their fair share of power play chances, but the Coyotes are continuing to have success on the penalty kill, which is something they’ll take away from this game. The Coyotes would immediately travel to Chicago to take on the Blackhawks on Sunday.
For the majority of this game, it was a goalie battle between Corey Crawford and Scott Wedgewood as the game went through two scoreless periods. Blackhawks’ Tommy Wingels would get the Hawks on the board first; ending the scoreless game. Minutes later, the Coyotes would answer back with a center and score goal from Anthony Duclair, tying the game at 1, but Chicago wouldn’t go away as Artem Anisimov and Nick Schmaltz would make it a 3-1 lead and eventually the game. The Coyotes played fairly well for the first two periods, but the lack of offense killed them as the result shows.
Things to take note of this week are early goals. These early goals are a huge problem for the Coyotes as most of them appear to be game-deciding goals. Antti Raanta has made his return after Scott Wedgewood was forced to be the starter for multiple games in a row. Raanta allowed just the one goal in Columbus.
