Coyotes continue winning ways over Oilers
The Coyotes got two goals each from Martin Hanzal and Lee Stempniak and Phoenix cruised to an easy 5-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night at Jobing.com Arena. The win gives the Yotes their seventh streak victory and their unbeaten streak now stands at nine.
The main goal going into this game was to get off to a fast start early so the young Oilers couldn’t feel good about themselves. Hanzal did that exactly right off the bat with his goal 48 seconds in. It is pretty hard to get off to a quicker start than that. It immediately put the Oilers back on their heels and you could tell by their body language that it was going to be a long night for them.
Hanzal’s goal was his sixth on the season. In only 15 games played so far this year, Hanzal is already well ahead of his pace of 11 goals last season. The goal for Stempniak was his seventh on the season and his second netter late in the third period put him one ahead of Hanzal and Radim Vrbata as the team leader in goals. Stempniak has been quite the pick up since Phoenix traded for him from Toronto at the tail end of last season. The other goal was scored by Wojtek Wolski early on in the second period.
Ilya Bryzgalov got the number one star of the game and rightfully so as he stopped every shot that was thrown at him, but Edmonton never really put tremendous at any point during the game. He made 23 saves and probably less than a handful of those were difficult saves. Bryz is back to playing at that elite level that he was playing at last season. For those counting at home, he has only allowed 13 goals in his last six starts, all of which he has won.
It is certainly an exciting time to be a fan of the Desert Dogs at the current moment. This team is clicking on all cylinders. The defense has been much improved, Bryzgalov is back into form and the big-time players are stepping up at the right times and getting key goals. There is still a lot of hockey to be played, but it sure feels nice as a huge fan of this team to be in first place over the Kings, even if it is only for a day or so.
The Yotes next game won’t be until Saturday night against a struggling Anaheim Ducks squad. The puck will drop at 6 p.m. Lets just hope that this team doesn’t have a Thanksgiving hangover on that night.