Surging Avs defeat struggling Coyotes
The official game recap Arizona Coyotes vs Colorado Avalanche.Ryan O'Reilly and Jarome Iginla scored 29 seconds apart in the first period to spark the Colorado Avalanche to a 5-2 win against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday.
Rookie Freddie Hamilton scored his first NHL goal in the second period, and Matt Duchene added his 18th and Gabriel Landeskog his 20th in the third period for Colorado (33-26-11). The Avalanche have won 11 of 15 games since Feb. 14 and are seven points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
Goalie Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves for Colorado, which takes a three-game winning streak into its game at the Anaheim Ducks on Friday.
Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored his team-leading 18th and 19th goals for Arizona (21-42-8), which has lost 16 of its past 17 games and scored 22 goals during that span. The Coyotes, who have lost 14 of their past 15 at Gila River Arena, have scored two goals or less in 18 of the past 21 games.
Ekman-Larsson's 19 goals lead all NHL defensemen; he has one more than Eric Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators. Rookie goaltender Louis Domingue made 24 saves for Arizona, which lost forward Martin Erat to an upper-body injury in the second period. Erat did not return.
The Coyotes got off to a fast start, outshooting the Avalanche 6-1 in the first four minutes - four coming when the line of Erat, Sam Gagner and Shane Doan trapped Colorado's exhausted checking line on the ice with pressure that led to a goal. Gagner found a wide-open Ekman-Larsson with a pass across the crease and Ekman-Larsson beat Varlamov to the near post with a high wrist shot at 3:24. It was Ekman-Larsson's first goal in 13 games, since he scored in Colorado on Feb. 16.
But Avalanche flipped the momentum quickly with the goals by O'Reilly and Iginla.
O'Reilly took a pass from Landeskog and split two defenders. Domingue stopped his shot but lost the puck underneath him before pushing it across the line with his own skate at 8:15. O'Reilly has goals in back-to-back games after going 17 games without scoring.
Colorado made it 2-1 at 8:45 when Arizona defenseman Michael Stone leaped but missed a puck that went over his head, sending Iginla in 2-on-1 with Duchene. Iginla held the puck and beat Domingue cleanly between the pads with a wrist shot. It was the 22nd goal and 49th point of the season for the Iginla; the 37-year-old leads the Avalanche in each category.
Hamilton, acquired from the San Jose Sharks on March 2, made it 3-1 at 8:09 of the second period, deflecting Brad Stuart's shot between Domingue's pads.
Ekman-Larson pulled the Coyotes within a goal at 11:53 of the third period, knocking a Lauri Korpikoski rebound out of the air, off Stuart and into the net for his second goal. But Duchene scored off a Dennis Everberg feed at 14:51 and Duchene added an empty-netter with 12.1 seconds left.
-- by Jerry Brown for NHL.com --
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
20/03/2015 - 06:00
