Arizona Coyotes Fall In Homestand Finale 4-1 To Devils

The Arizona Coyotes closed out their home stand with another loss in 4-1 fashion on Saturday to the New Jersey Devils. The Coyotes came out swinging in the first twenty minutes seemingly learning their lesson from the Chicago game by finding ways to get shots on New Jersey starter Corey Schneider from just about every angle, at one point in the second period Arizona was outshooting the Devils 21-7 but the score remained tied.

“We were doing the little things like getting pucks to the net and getting second opportunities,” Shane Doan said.

A microcosm of the entire season in just 30 minutes, chances galore both at even strength and short handed but no ability to finish. Makes sense though as the Coyotes have the lowest on ice shooting percentage of any team in the league at seven percent coming into Saturday. New Jersey for comparison is over a nine percent clip on the season.

Hockey isn’t normally known for being a game of inches but a late second period power play goal thanks to a lucky bounce off the end boards and a sweet pair of hands from Adam Henrique gave the Devils a 1-0 lead.

On the night the Coyotes took five penalties and both players and coach know that’s a problem.

“Right now we are beating ourselves,” Oliver Ekman-Larsson said.

Over the last three games the Coyotes have combined for 49 penalty minutes and have given up three power play goals.

Along with the penalties though the Coyotes got away from what made them succesfull in the first part of the game and started making mistakes which led to all four New Jersey goals coming in the last 22 minutes of the game.

“In the second period we lost a lot of faceoffs and gave up four or five chances off lost battles off faceoffs,” Dave Tippett said.

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It was Corey Schneider who weathered the storm though for New Jersey and ended up making 30 saves on the night.

“I think we make a lot of goalies look good but as good as they are we end up making them look good,” Tippett said.

For a brief moment however the Coyotes solved Cory Schneider as Shane Doan scored his first goal since February 9th to bring the Coyotes to within a goal six minutes into the third but the Devils answered back on their next shift to make the game a a two goal game off the stick of Jordin Tootoo.

“Its one of those plays where you are trying to push to get back in the game so the next line is trying to push too and they get caught on the wrong side of it,” Doan said.

A big part of the Devils ability to put the game away in the third was rebounds off the pads of goalie Mike Smith who stopped 25 of the 29 shots he faced.