Coyotes Bite Sharks 5-3
The Sharks are the predominate road team in the NHL. With a 16-3-3 record before last night’s contest, the Sharks looked unstoppable. The last time they lost a road game in regulation was October 27th against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Until they met the resilient team of the Phoenix Coyotes who have learned not to quit.
After dropping three in a row against the Sharks earlier in the season, the Coyotes have regrouped and now have figured out just how to play this talented team. Best of all, they won last night’s game without their top scorer of Radim Vrbata or solid veteran Steven Reinprecht who left the game due to injury.
As the news broke about Vrbata and Reinprecht’s departure, I became concerned about how the Coyotes would answer, especially, when the Sharks scored first. Clearly, Ed Jovanovski and the line of Shane Doan – Joel Perrault – Peter Mueller would quell any of those questions and remove any doubt.
Jovanovski had a huge night with a goal and three assists, Doan had two goals and an assist, and Mueller had three assists. All players, save for Mueller, were a plus-2 and Mueller was a plus-1.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mueller was named to the Young Guns game for the All-Star weekend. He showed everyone later that night why the selection was appropriate. And since Jovanovski was selected as a reserve defenseman for the All-Star game, he has ratcheted up his performance a notch with a three-game point streak and he is third on the team for points scored.
Joel Perrault scored his fifth goal of the season and continues to impress since being recalled from San Antonio. Last season, Perrault was waived from the Coyotes, only to be snatched by the St. Louis Blues on the waiver wire. Later, the Blues waived him again and the Coyotes reclaimed him. Perrault spent the bulk of his time in San Antonio with the Rampage, but this season he clearly is a different player.
After having a rough two periods, where the Coyotes held on, Ilya Bryzgalov returned to form in the third, especially when the Coyotes through Perrault’s goal early in the frame took the lead. I had the feeling that nothing would get past Bryzgalov and once again he became the solid goaltender.
Bryzgalov bailed the team out of tough spots earlier in the season when he arrived in Phoenix, and in this five game stretch his teammates now return the favor.
The Coyotes are now on a four-game winning streak at home, their home record improves to 9-10-1, and they are three points from tying for the eighth and final playoff spot. Once again, Wayne Gretzky and his coaching staff of Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Fuhr have been pressing the right buttons to make sure their team plays at the highest level it can.
For more, see:
- The Arizona Republic’s recap of Tuesday night’s game
- The San Jose Mercury News recap of Tuesday night’s game
I have some catching up to do, so I’ll start with the Coyotes’ victory over the Sharks. I must say, what a big win this was. I agree with you, PB… it was interesting to see how they’d respond after Radim Vrbata would not play. And I couldn’t have asked for a better turn of events than how the Coyotes played.
While it was a bit tough to watch them squander the lead, especially when Curtis Brown got lucky and batted in that “barely legal” goal, but Phoenix pressed forward much to my delight. Had this been the Coyotes of the last few years, the might’ve crumbled under pressure. Not this night.
The bottom line to all this is that as you said, the Coyotes know how to play the Sharks AND have enough confidence to play with the big boys now.