Instant Reaction following the Arizona Coyotes win over Vegas

The Arizona Coyotes finally won a game! Ladies and gentleman we won a game! More importantly we scored goals!

Honestly it was easy to overreact to this game like Arizona won the Stanley Cup. Not only did the team win but they did it without their top line really making a difference. Nick Schmaltz, Niklas Hjalmarsson, and Conor Garland (twice) were the goal scorers tonight for the ‘Yotes, but that does not tell the entire story.

Arizona was faster, and a lot more fun to watch tonight. Throughout the entire week we spoke about how important it would be to score early. 

Tonight was the first night Arizona had a lead in a game, and the first time they scored first in the game. Obviously Coyotes fans liked the results tonight, if you want to keep doing that you need to keep scoring goals early.

With all that in mind let’s jump in with a few thoughts from tonight’s game.

1st period thoughts :

Wow are we fast. More than a few times in the 1st period the Coyotes caught Vegas sleeping and sped around them towards the net. Pretty soon you will capitalize on those opportunities. The penalty kill looked great again and showcased why they are the “bread and butter” for this team.

The Arizona Coyotes second line of Hayton, Dvorak, and Schmaltz looked amazing, and had a goal to prove it. Adding Barrett Hayton to the lineup really provided a spark with the team, and seems to have woken Schmaltz.

Why on earth we tried to review that call is beyond me. Vegas scored and if it was a high stick we were holding the stick up.

2nd period thoughts:

We are STILL fast. I think I saw 3 or 4 breakaways in the second period. Conor Garland is fun, and fast! The Arizona Coyotes are shutting down Vegas in the neutral zone, which is great to see.

I think both Vegas and Arizona wanted to play tonight with 6 skaters. The referees missed a too many men on the ice call against Vegas, and then called Arizona for the penalty a bit later. Maybe we should just switch to 6 players…

The penalty kill keeps getting great opportunities. Stepan was stopped on a breakaway on the Penalty Kill. I think they are trying to remake the magic they had last year. 

Obviously it is a long game, and you want to see your team succeed throughout all 60 minutes. Through the first 40 we got that from Arizona.

3rd period thoughts:

Eh as long as we won I did not really mind how we played in the third. It just seemed to be a game of take away, with of course the original blown power play with 5 minutes to go. (what else is new)

Three Stars of the Game

3rd Star : Niklas Hjalmarsson 

Ok, I was going to give the third start to Barrett Hayton, but come on! How many times did Niklas Hjalmarsson score last season? ZERO!

The work horse defenseman deserves to be one of the three stars in my eyes. He also blocked a shot with his nose tonight so…. yeah 3rd star for the player probably seeing stars!

2nd Star : Darcy Kuemper 

Oh Darcy, where would we be without you? Kuemper came to play hockey tonight, and stopped a lot of shots from the Arizona Coyotes. He earned the second star tonight based on his consistency throughout the season thus far.

Kuemper has no control over how many goals the Coyotes score, however he can control how many goals they give up. Over the past 3 games Kuemper has only given up 4 goals, not bad!

1st Star : Conor Garland 

Scoring two goals is a lot of fun! Garland had only scored 13 times before tonight, and has now put that number up to 15!

Garland showed his speed and his ability to finish tonight and hopefully he can continue to do that throughout the rest of the season.

Arizona Coyotes win 4-1 over the Vegas Golden Knights 

Only 79 more games to go this season! We will have our full game recap available tomorrow! Go Coyotes it is fun talking about a win!