Heartbreak Hotel for Coyotes in New York

The Coyotes held a two-goal lead late into the second period, but were unable to hold on in their 4-3 shootout lost to the New York Rangers on Thursday night.  Through two games on this trip so far, Phoenix has only one point.

Things couldn’t have gotten off to a better start for the Dogs.  Taylor Pyatt got a power play goal when the game wasn’t even two minutes old yet and then Adrian Aucoin scored past Rangers goaltender Martin Biron more than four minutes later to give Phoenix an early two-goal lead.  The goal for Aucoin was his first of the season.  Dan Girardi though scored on a power play to give the Rangers momentum going into intermission.

Phoenix took back momentum midway through the second period when Martin Hanzal got his eighth goal of the season on the power play.  As it looked like the Yotes were going to go into the third period with a two-goal advantage, Jason LaBarbera got out of position making a play for a puck.  LaBarbera lost control of it from Brandon Prust and he took advantage of it for an easy goal.  Derek Stepan then tied it with a goal in the third period to send it into overtime.

After a relatively quiet overtime period, the two goalies were good in the shootout.  Erik Christensen was the first to go and ended up being the only one to score.  Biron would turned down Lee Stempniak, Radim Vrbata and Eric Belanger to preserve the win for the guys from the Big Apple.

This one was certainly a lost opportunity for Phoenix.  They held two-goal leads in two separate occasions in the game and were able to get only one point out of this one.  You should be able to win those kinds of games, no matter if you are playing a quality opponent on the road or not.  Lets just hope this doesn’t end up biting this team in the butt down the road.

Luckily for the Coyotes, they face a really poor New York Islanders team on Saturday night.  Before tonight’s win, the Islanders had lost six straight games.  Here’s to them going back to their losing ways.