Stepan scores from own blue line, Coyotes win big
Arizona blows out Ottawa for 4th straight win
GLENDALE — Derek Stepan gathered the puck near Arizona’s blue line and flipped it toward the other end, hoping to kill a few extra seconds off Ottawa’s power play. The puck skittered off the ice and slipped through the goalie’s pads, a dump-in turned into an unexpected goal.
A little lucky? Maybe, but the Coyotes are also creating good fortune by playing hard and smart during a four-game winning streak.
Stepan scored his shorthanded goal in Arizona’s three-goal first period and Antti Raanta stopped 25 shots, lifting the surging Coyotes to a 5-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.
“You earn your bounces,” Stepan said. “We had some bounces going the other way early on in the year, now they’re starting to go our way and in a few weeks, they’re going to come back the other way. Good teams find ways to win any given night regardless of the bounces.”
The Coyotes opened the season 1-4-0, shut out three times their first four games. Once Arizona started scoring, the pucks have kept finding the net.
The Coyotes chased Ottawa goalie Mike Condon with three goals on 10 shots in the first period, capped by Stepan’s short-hander. Arizona has short-handed goals in three straight games for the second time in franchise history (1985), with five in that span.
Alex Galchenyuk notched his first goal with Arizona and had an assist on Oliver Ekman Larsson’s power-play goal in the third period. Brad Richardson and Richard Panik also scored for the Coyotes, who have outscored opponents 20-4 during the four-game winning streak.
“It’s hard to score goals in this league and we’ve got a good mojo going right now,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. The Senators don’t. Coming off an overtime loss at Vegas on Sunday, Ottawa was flat early while falling into a big hole. The