The Arizona Coyotes started this week back on another big road trip, but this time through the beautiful country of Canada on a 4-game road trip. To start the trip, the Coyotes would seek revenge against the Winnipeg Jets. After an embarrassing 4-1 loss on home ice, the Coyotes would attempt to play spoiler for the fans in Winnipeg. The game started off slowly, but the Jets would strike first with a goal coming from Andrew Copp. That would be the extent of the scoring for the first period, but by the 2nd period, things turned south for the Yotes as the Jets would score a 3-goal second period with goals coming from Joel Armia, Bryan Little, and Adam Lowry to make the game 4-0 Winnipeg. The Coyotes would eventually get on the board with a goal from defenseman Alex Goligoski in the 3rd period, but that would be the end of the scoring in this game where Winnipeg thwarted the Coyotes plans of revenge. The story of this game is Jets’ goalie, Connor Hellebuyck who has been playing outstanding with an 11-1-2 record posting a 2.27 goals against average and a .931 save percentage. It appears the Jets’ searches for a starting goalie has been right in front of them this entire time, but Arizona would move on to Montreal next to take on the Canadiens.
With their recent struggles, the Canadiens would start goalie Charlie Lindgren in hopes to get things back on track. Antti Raanta would get the start for the second game in a row for the Coyotes. The Canadiens would get the early lead as both Brendan Gallagher and Paul Byron scored making it 2-0 Canadiens after the 1st period. Something must’ve been said in the locker room to spark this group up as the Coyotes would come out of the gate with 2 goals coming from Brad Richardson and Christian Dvorak, but Joe Morrow would put Montreal back on top with a shot that bounced in off the post. 4 minutes later the Coyotes fought back for another goal coming from Tobias Reider to tie the game at 3. With just 11 seconds left to go in the 2nd period, Montreal’s Shea Weber slapped one home right off the faceoff to put the Habs up by one; 4-3. With the Coyotes still in this game, they managed to take advantage of some Montreal penalties and 2 power plays later, Derek Stepan and Christian Fischer would score on two different power plays to put the Coyotes up by one; 5-4, which would be the end of this game, giving the Coyotes their first regulation win of the season. The Coyotes would set the record for most games without a regulation win at 20 games though, but they would escape out of Montreal with 2 points.
Their next stop would be to Ottawa to take on the Senators. With the newly acquired Matt Duchene, the Senators were proving to be a real challenge for the Coyotes, but that didn’t stop them. Antti Raanta would get the start again and the Coyotes would activate Anthony Duclair from the healthy scratch list. Ottawa would be the first to score as Mark Stone would wrist one past Antti Raanta to put the Sens up 1-0, but just a few minutes later, Anthony Duclair would dangle one past the Senators’ goalie Mike Condon to tie the game at 1. Come the 2nd period, Senators’ Mark Borowiecki would give the Sens a 2-1 lead. That would be the only goal in the second period. Anthony Duclair would get his 2nd of the game in the 3rd period to tie the game at 2. The game would require overtime. If you can sense a goal scoring theme here, you’d probably guess who the Coyotes’ hero would be. That’s right, Anthony Duclair managed to squeak one past Condon to not only give the Coyotes the win, but the Duke’s 2nd career hattrick. The Coyotes would take it 3-2/OT. Being a healthy scratch for many games and scoring a hattrick in your first game back shows the hard work Duclair has put in to prove how much he wants to be on this team.
Earning 4/6 points possible so far, the Coyotes are starting to slowly turn things around as they finally started their first win streak of the season. They will be in Toronto to play the red-hot Maple Leafs on Monday.
