Game Preview

As they say all good things must come to an end. The Arizona Coyotes four game win streak and six game point streak came to an end after a lackluster effort led to a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Thursday. The 'Yotes are going to need to put that behind them and start fresh and get the next win streak going.

Arizona didn’t do a lot particularly well against the Flames this past Thursday. They weren’t able to slow the Flames’ best players as Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Matthew Tkachuk all had goals on the night. The Coyotes special teams were awful, allowing a short handed goal and a power play goal and failing to convert on five separate power play opportunities. Perhaps the best thing you can say about the Desert Dogs is they scored first early, although they let Calgary retake the lead in the first.

The Anaheim Ducks come into tonight’s game riding their own four game win streak. Anaheim currently hold the last playoff spot of the Pacific Division, although the Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames are only two points behind them. Like the last team that came to town the Ducks are an extremely hungry team looking to secure their playoff spot and overtake a rival San Jose Sharks team in the standings.

Tonight’s game will be the first meeting of these two teams in Arizona this year. The past two games were in Anaheim and the Ducks took both with scores of 5-4 and 5-2. Luckily the Coyotes have been playing much better as the season went on, and hopefully will be able to string together a good effort.

Game Wrap Up

The game against the Anaheim Ducks was largely uneventful and had the result gone the other way, it would have been a very painful game to watch.

Arizona took a 2-0 victory over Anaheim, their first win against the Ducks this season. The victory can largely be attributed to the Coyotes stellar neutral zone play and tight defensive coverage. Oh, and of course the outstanding play of net-minder Antti Raanta.

Jason Demers opened the scoring at the 5:58 mark of the first period, assisted by Josh Archibald and Kevin Connauton.

From there, neither team could find the back of the net again for 53:01 minutes of action despite there being six power play opportunities for the match.

The next, and final goal of the game was an empty net goal by Max Domi, set up by Archibald (two assists on the night) and Niklas Hjalmarsson.

With Richard Panik nursing a lower-body injury, Freddie Hamilton finally drew into his first game as a Coyote. Playing 10:22 minutes, Hamitlon finished with a +/- of +1, 1 shot on goal, 2 hits and won 14% of face-offs he drew.

Looking Ahead

Arizona play again at Gila River Arena tomorrow night against the Vancouver Canucks. Puck drop is at 7:30pm MT and can be viewed on Fox Sports Arizona or tuned into on KTAR News 92.3 FM.