Coyotes stage rally again, come up short
The last time the Arizona Coyotes faced the Colorado Avalanche before Friday night, the Avalanche scored seven goals in a rout to finish off the Coyotes in the qualifying round of the playoffs last season in the NHL’s bubble.
Friday was nothing close to that, but the Avalanche showed what makes them a Stanley Cup Finals contender for 58 minutes before the Coyotes rallied with two late goals in Colorado’s 3-2 win.
Phil Kessel and Drake Caggiula scored for the Coyotes to turn a threegoal lead into one, but a third straight three-goal comeback for the Coyotes wasn’t there this time.
“It’s frustrating to see we’ve had the same pattern the last three games,” Coyotes defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson said. “We woke up a little bit too late. We have to play with a little bit more urgency in front of their net.”
Nazem Kadri had a goal and two assists, Mikko Rantanen scored a goal and assisted on another, and Andre Burakovsky and Kadri had third-period goals for the Avalanche (10-6-1).
Adin Hill, in his first start of the season in net for the Coyotes after getting the win in relief of Darcy Kuemper on Wednesday against Anaheim, stopped 26 shots. But the Avalanche turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-0 game quickly in the third period, and the Coyotes ran out of time to force more hockey.
Rantanen scored with two seconds left on Colorado’s third power play of the game. He put in a rebound of a shot from Nathan MacKinnon that went to Kadri, who slid the puck to an unmarked Rantanen for the goal 1 minute and 43 seconds into the second period.
The Coyotes couldn’t get much going in the offensive zone, and Hill was forced into making save after save. The Avalanche were faster on their skates and on defense, quickly eating up any space the Coyotes had for possession and potential shots.
“They are a talented big team and they’re a better team than us. So for us to compete, you can’t have passengers,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “We had too many guys that had zeros tonight. Against this team, you can’t have five or six guys with just zeros.”
MacKinnon, a three-time All-Star, zipped through, around and past the Coyotes several times for scoring chances.