The Arizona Coyotes ended a five-game losing streak after a fine display this Saturday afternoon
Looking to rebound after a very poor night the Arizona Coyotes hosted the Dallas Stars in their final meeting of the regular season looking to improve their record and also keep their playoff hopes alive.
The teams met last Monday and as the Stars got the win in a very entertaining game. It was also clear during the last few games that Coyotes' special teams need improvement. Allowing four goals on the penalty kill and failing to score in the power play will not get it done.
Rick Tocchet's team flipped the page really quickly and started to get the offense going in the famous Kachina jerseys and opened the scoring with the man advantage. Defenseman Alex Goligoski scored a beautiful top-shelf goal against his old team.
Period after period the trend continued
Similar to the first goal, the Coyotes extended their lead over the Stars. This time it was Alex Galchenyuk who had assisted on the first Coyotes' goal. The team outshot their visitors in a completely different game from Monday.
Galchenyuk was not done and he tallied the third goal as well. This was his second multi-goal game of the season that gave the team a critical lead. The penalty kill also worked well with some good efforts in shot blocks by Niklas Hjalmarsson and Kevin Connauton.
Home fans were scared as a late comeback of the Dallas Stars started to be designed when Brett Ritchie scored a goal on rebound to beat Darcy Kuemper. Just 27 seconds later Alexander Radulov redirected a nice shot in front to reduce the lead to just one.
Kuemper had 33 saves on the night with help from his solid defense all night long, avoiding the worst and frustrating any attempt of a late tying goal by the Stars which resulted in a very important win for the Arizona Coyotes this Saturday.
While the team had Jakob Chychrun back on the ice, the team had sad news as Kyle Capobianco a recent call-up from the Tucson Roadrunners and point scoring leader of the AHL affiliate will be out for the season due to an ACL injury.
The Coyotes are now four points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference. They will attempt to keep their dream of a postseason alive as they will need to keep winning games first on the road against Vegas Golden Knights and later in another homestand vs St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Dallas Stars next game is against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.
Do the Arizona Coyotes have what it takes to continue with playoff race run in Western Conference? Comment in the section below.