Two goals in 3rd period fuel Coyotes victory
Shane Doan is the aging leader of a struggling hockey team. He’s still relishing the experience, though.
Arizona’s 40-year-old captain had his first three-point game of the season and assisted on Jordan Martinook’s winning goal Friday night as the visiting Coyotes beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-2.
Doan added a power-play, empty-net goal in the final minute to clinch it. Christian Dvorak and Alex Goligoski also scored for Arizona, which snapped a five-game skid against Carolina and a twogame slide overall. Louis Domingue made 32 saves in the finale of the Coyotes’ sixgame trip.
“We didn’t play very well last night,” Arizona coach Dave Tippett said of the 6-3 loss at Buffalo. “There was a lot of frustration from that game, and we came out today, and it took a while to figure out which players were moving better than others. [Doan] was one of those guys.”
Carolina got goals from Lee Stempniak and Jordan Staal to erase an early 2-0 deficit, but still lost its fourth in a row. Cam Ward stopped 18 shots.
“We gave up five shots in the third, and we turned the puck over on the game-winner, right?” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “When you turn pucks over in tough spots, bad things happen. The game-winner is off a Dzone turnover is what it is.”
Martinook scored 9:02 into the third. Doan passed from behind the net to Martinook in front, and he beat Ward from the low slot.
“We kind of hung on there for a couple of periods,” Martinook said. “And going into the third, we wanted to leave it all out there. Doaner was good. It was nice going back out there for a couple of shifts to rekindle that magic. ‘Devo’ [Dvorak] has been hogging him all year.”
Dvorak scored 11:34 into the first by taking Doan’s cross-ice pass on a rush and beating Ward high to the glove side.
“Everybody wants to contribute offensively, and I haven’t done a very good job for the most part this whole year,” Doan said. “When you get an opportunity to and you’re able to, it feels great. I wish it happened more often. We’ve said in the room a few times it’s such an incredible blessing to get to play hockey in the NHL. You have a very limited number of games and it’s pretty special. You’ve got to enjoy that.”
Goligoski made it 2-0 with 2:31 left in the first. He beat Ward stick side off a centering pass from former Hurricane Radim Vrbata, who got his team-best 33rd assist.
Stempniak scored nearly two minutes later, re-directing Jaccob Slavin’s blast from the left point over Domingue’s left shoulder. Jay McClement, playing in his 900th NHL game, got a point in his second game in a row.
Staal tied it at 1:30 of the second, taking a centering pass from Teuvo Tervainen and slamming the puck past Domingue on the open glove side of the net.
Other games
Jets 3, Blues 0: Connor Hellebuyck stopped 29 shots for his fourth shutout of the season and Winnipeg beat visiting St. Louis. Blake Wheeler scored twice and Winnipeg handed St. Louis its fifth consecutive loss.
Blackhawks 2, Islanders 1: Artemi Panarin scored with 1:14 left in regulation and then had the clinching goal in the shootout, helping Chicago beat visiting New York.