Arizona Coyotes Play 2-Game Set vs Vengeful Anaheim Ducks

The Arizona Coyotes (12-13-4 28 pts) will mercifully face someone other than the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night and Saturday in Southern California. The Anaheim Ducks (8-16-6 22 pts) host the Coyotes after losing in humiliating fashion to the powerful Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday evening 8 to 4. The Ducks were up 4 to 2 in the first period, but the wheels ultimately fell off their “not-so fast” victory bus and, after being struck by the Avalanche freight train, it crashed and burned.

Thus, the Anaheim Ducks will most likely be in a very nasty mood come game time on Thursday night, and will try to take their frustration out on the similarly irritable, pugilistic Desert Dogs. Let’s take a look at some Ducks and Coyotes comparisons, then, and figure out who the Ducks and Coyotes are that are most likely to do some damage.

Points

Max Comtois and Rickard Rakell – 19 pts
Conor Garland – 22 pts
Clayton Keller – 21 pts

Goals

Max Comtois – 9
Adam Henrique – 7
Phil Kessel and Christian Dvorak – 9 each
Conor Garland and Clayton Keller – 8 each
Jakob Chychrun and Nick Schmaltz – 7 each

Assists

Rickard Rakell – 13
Cam Fowler – 11
Conor Garland – 14
Clayton Keller – 13
Jakob Chychrun – 12

Faceoff Percentage

Adam Henrique – 57.53%
Ryan Getzlaf – 50.24%
Clayton Keller – 57.14%
Christian Dvorak 54.04%

Goalkeeping

John Gibson GP 23 (W 6 – L 12 – OT 5) GAA: 3.11 Save percentage: .894
Adin Hill GP 4 (W 1 – L 3 – OT 0) GAA: 2.73 Save percentage: .910
Antti Raanta GP 4 (W 4 – L 3 – OT 2) GAA: 3.36 Save percentage: .912

You can bet that both the Ducks and the Coyotes will come out focused on Thursday night, as both teams were embarrassed by their opponents. In a post-game media interview last night, Ducks’ captain Ryan Getzlaf said that his line played poorly and that they as a group would take responsibility for their substandard play. He also stated the obvious: the Ducks didn’t protect their net well enough.

As in all sports, a competitor has to consistently out-think, out-hustle, and out-play his/her opponent to win, and it’s normally the one-on-one battles that ultimately decide the winner. The Yotes don’t need much motivation by virtue of suffering 4 consecutive losses to Colorado and to Minnesota (being outscored 13 to 2 in the process).

The Anaheim Ducks want to put their crushing loss to the Avalanche behind them quickly. They’ve scored 6 goals and given up 22 in their last 4 games, all losses. They also want to avenge their devastating losses to the Coyotes in late February, and winning their next two games on home ice is just the remedy they need. The next two games should be real physical battles and thus very interesting to watch, as both sides have something to prove. Let’s go Coyotes!