The Arizona Coyotes lost their fourth straight but produced a much better effort against Minnesota.
Shortly before the Arizona Coyotes took the ice in Minnesota, a bombshell dropped.
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Anthony Duclair was demoted to Tucson. The message was clear.
Produce or sit.
A few of the youngsters got the message.
Nonetheless, the Wild tallied first when the rejuvenated Eric Staal scored less than five minutes into the contest. The Yotes were down 1-0 very early.
Thankfully there’s a new young gun in town and his name is Brendan Perlini.
Shane Doan hit Perlini in stride as he cut into the neutral zone and Perlini took the puck to The Perlini Spot (TM) and wristed it past Devan Dubnyk. This kid. Sheesh.
Less than two minutes later a penalty put the Coyotes on their heels and Nino Niederreiter scored on the power play. The first period ended with Minnesota up 2-1.
The second period was pretty quiet throughout until Chris Stewart found the back of the net for the bad guys. Suddenly Arizona found itself down by multiple goals in yet another game.
Jakob Chychrun took matters into his own hands, burying another Doan feed past Dubnyk to cut the lead to 3-2.
Perhaps the Chychrun goal rattled Dubnyk, as Jamie McGinn found a loose puck in the face-off circle and fired it past the motionless Wild goaltender.
The second period ended knotted up 3-3 with the Arizona Coyotes looking to nab at least a point.
As usual, however, mistakes reared their ugly head.
Shane Doan was called for hooking and Niederreiter scored his second goal of the game on the ensuing power play.
The Yotes had a late power play of their own but could not even produce a shot on goal and fell in Minnesota, 4-3.
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Shane Doan set up two of the Coyotes’ three goals and had a pretty decent performance overall for a man who is now the subject of constant trade speculation.
He did take a bad penalty late and appear to run out of gas a bit as his minutes were up, but if not for his contributions offensively we might be looking at another shutout or one goal effort.
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It wasn’t a victory, but this is the kind of effort fans (and management) should expect to see out of the Arizona Coyotes.
They were active and aggressive. The team was engaged. Our kids showed up and they contributed.
It looked a lot like last season, and for this point in the season a close game that builds confidence in the team’s young players is what we’re looking for.
I could watch Perlini do his thing anytime, and it’s extremely good to see Chychrun find the back of the net two nights in a row after such a long dry spell.
If this version of the team can begin to show up more often, a lot of the concerns about the direction of the team could be put to rest.
That remains to be seen, however.
Arizona takes the ice at home on Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
