Arizona Coyotes vs Anaheim Ducks
It’s a good thing the team is riding high, because they’ll need that positive energy to pull off a win on Friday.
The Arizona Coyotes were given a brief reprieve from their grueling Eastern Conference road trip on Tuesday, when they hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs in Glendale. The squad played the brand of Coyotes hockey that all the fans know and love- but a weakened penalty kill that allowed two Leafs goals late in the game could cost the team against a much stronger Anaheim.
Luckily (for the Coyotes, at least), the Ducks are finally being hit by the misfortune bug that practically every team in the NHL has experienced so far: Anaheim netminder John Gibson is out with a groin injury, and both Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry were sent home from Wednesday night’s game with the flu.
Details for Friday night’s game:
DATE: Friday, November 7th
TIME: 7:00pm (PST)
LOCATION: Anaheim, California
ARENA: Honda Center
TV INFO: Fox Sportz AZ, PT25
Keys to Victory:
The Anaheim Ducks play a gritty, physical game- and the players that have capitalized on this the most are still on the ice. If the Coyotes go into this game underestimating what a force Ryan Kesler is, they’re in for it.
Puck Prose
Gritty teams lose, though, when the opposition forces them to adapt their style of play- and if the Coyotes can draw penalties out of the Anaheim squad, they can capitalize on their monstrous power play record and hopefully start the month off strong.
Sam Gagner has two goals in two games; he looks great with Mikkel Boedker and Lauri Korpikoski (which is the surprise of the year, but no complaints here), so I’d like to see if that line can’t duplicate their success from earlier in the week. Antoine Vermette, who is garnering attention around the league for his pending free agent status this summer, might as well continue to do what he’s done best this season- start off the team with scoring opportunities.
Mike Smith is confirmed in goal for the Coyotes (likely across the ice from Frederik Andersen, although no confirmation out of Anaheim yet), so expect to see this veteran netminder try to continue climbing out of the hole he dug himself in October. With a team like the Ducks, he’s got to be a combination of his best traits and those that I’ve praised Dubnyk for- I’d like to see the athletic Smitty we know and love, but one who maybe makes a few more glove saves and smothers the puck to prevent the Ducks from scoring on the rebound. The Coyotes have an extremely powerful offensive blue line, but they’ve missed out on quite a few chances to bail out their own netminder on more than one occasion.
Predictions:
The Coyotes open up scoring, but go down pretty quickly. I think they’ll come back, but won’t be able to redeem themselves.
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