Hockey the Hard Way: Coyotes miraculously take home 4-3 win over San Jose Sharks

Coyotes extend Pacific Division record to 6-1-0 in shootout win over San Jose Sharks

The Coyotes continued their winning ways inside the Pacific Division on Saturday, taking away a 4-3 shootout victory over the San Jose Sharks.

The win was far from easy, though. The Coyotes were outshot 43-25 over the span of the game and blew two different leads on their road to victory, allowing San Jose to take 91 shot attempts while only attempting 48 themselves.

There was really no statistic to support the Coyotes taking home the win in this hockey game, but they did — thanks to a couple of key players.

Only one line came to play on Saturday — the Shane Doan–Tobias Rieder–Sam Gagner line.

Rieder easily had his best game in the NHL, as he was all over the ice from the start of the game to the finish. The German forward, recalled by the Coyotes midway through the season, constantly created chances in the offensive zone and created turnovers in the defensive zone to exhibit one of the best two-way games on the Coyotes roster. He only came away with an assist, but speeder Rieder was exactly what the hockey gods ordered for the Coyotes to stick in the game.

The other player that really shone on Saturday was goalie Devan Dubnyk, who continued his string of terrific starts with a season high 40 saves on 43 shots against. Doobs is now an impressive 5-0-1 to start off the season; he’s been doing some, ah, good things:

The Coyotes must have read my pregame keys to the game, because they came out the gates hot — at least on the scoreboard. They were outshot 11-7 in the first period, but left with a two goal lead.

The first came off the Power Play, when Antoine Vermette pounced on a rebound off his own stick and somehow managed to sneak it past Niemi’s five hole for the one goal lead.

The Coyotes would later add a second goal from David Schlemko, his first of the season. The blue liner was recently placed on waivers by the team, and has only been recalled from the Portland Pirates in the absence of Brandon Gormley.

The fun was short lived, however, as the desert dogs couldn’t continue the momentum they had built in the first.

The Coyotes looked slow and disinterested in the second period; case in point, the first Sharks goal came shorthanded thanks to a Sam Gagner offensive zone turnover and a lost board battle by Oliver Ekman-Larsson. These sloppy mistakes allowed Tommy Wingels to finish it off on the other end to cut the lead to one.

The Sharks would get another later in the period from Andrew Desjardins to tie it up at two after two.

As if the first two periods weren’t nerve-wracking enough, the third almost gave my ulcer an ulcer. The Coyotes managed to grab another lead thanks to Shane Doan and Tobias Rieder, but it didn’t last long as the Sharks answered minutes later on the power play… with a goal from notorious Coyotes-killer Joe Pavelski.

The game wound up in overtime — minus the dryscrape — and the Coyotes still did everything in their power to lose. Shane Doan took a high sticking penalty a minute into the four on four action, but the Coyotes killed it off and took the game to a shootout… where Antoine Vermette got the game winner (and only shootout goal for either team) past Niemi for the extra point.

Buckle up; Hockey the Hard Way is back with a vengeance. There is only one (semi) logical explanation:

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