Coyotes Can’t Keep Up With Sharks
The Arizona Coyotes were unable to defeat to the San Jose Sharks in the first half of a home-and-home series. In a Pacific Division match up that the Sharks desperately needed to win, the Coyotes weren’t able to keep up and lost 3-1.
It didn’t take long for San Jose to get to work. Within the first minute, the Sharks were able to take the lead with a Logan Couture snipe. Couture beat Louis Domingue on his right-handed glove side with a shot that the rookie goaltender would’ve liked another chance to save.
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With only five minutes played in the first period, San Jose was able to double their lead over Arizona. Moments after a Coyotes successful penalty kill, Patrick Marleau and Couture set up Joe Pavelski, who fired a point blank shot to the back of the net. With the Coyotes still showing affects of killing the penalty, Pavelski was able to sneak into a soft spot to give the Sharks a commanding 2-0 lead.
The first period came to a close moments after Arizona was unable to cash in on their own power play opportunity. The shots on goal disparity was hard to ignore as San Jose dominated 16-3. Oliver Ekman-Larsson played more than half of the period (10:29).
Within the first five minutes of the second period, the Coyotes were able to get on the scoreboard and cut the deficit in half. An odd man rush caused Mark Arcobello to attempt a pass to Tobias Rieder for a tap in.
Instead, a recovering Brent Burns was the one who tapped in the puck past Antti Niemi. Arcobello got credit his 16th goal of the season (8th with Arizona).
The last minute of the period saw Niemi completely reach back and rob Rieder’s deflection from tying up the game. The shots on goal advantage was much less decisive with San Jose taking a 10-7 advantage in the second period to make a 26-10 lead in that category for the game.
The third period saw both the Sharks and Coyotes trade chances, with neither able to gain a momentum shifting goal. With less than six minutes left in the game, and during 4 on 4 action, Matt Nieto was able to put home a rebound to give San Jose a 3-1 lead.
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The last few minutes of the game saw the Coyotes being forced to kill a penalty before committing to fully committing on gaining two goals. In the end, Arizona was unable to overcome their early deficit and fell to San Jose 3-1.
Domingue recovered solidly after a shaky start and had 34 saves in defeat.
The win keeps the Sharks clinging on to post season hopes as they are now three points away from both Los Angeles and Winnipeg for the last spot in the playoffs. As for the Coyotes, they continue to have only a two point advantage over Buffalo, who sits at the “coveted” 30th place in the NHL.
Arizona (23-47-8) and San Jose (39-30-9) will finish the second half of the home-and-home series tomorrow night when they meet in Glendale at 6 pm.
Goals:
Arizona Coyotes:
- Mark Arcobello (16th)
San Jose Sharks:
- Logan Couture (27th)
- Joe Pavelski (37th)
- Matt Nieto (9th)
Three Stars
- Logan Couture
- Patrick Marleau
- Antti Niemi