Smith shook off a hard collision to stop 27 shots, Jordan Martinook scored his first career National Hockey League goal and the Arizona Coyotes withstood a late flurry to beat the Penguins 2-1 on Saturday night.
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Over this past weekend, Smith went out and proved his comments were not elements of sophistry, and carried the Coyotes to a surprising 2-0 start with wins over the Kings and the Penguins. That’s when Smith led the Coyotes into the Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Kings, the eventual Stanley Cup victor. Pittsburgh will need better special teams play after going 0-for-3 with the man advantage and giving up two power-play tallies in its opener. The Coyotes have 80-games and this funky opus has just begun. However, they didn’t only survive…they dominated.
Predators 2, Oilers 0: NASHVILLE, Tenn. The team is simply better than they were a year ago and everything is clicking out there on the ice.
One of the biggest questions on everyone’s mind this summer was Arizona’s goaltending situation. Penguins coach Mike Johnston chalked it up to a slow start.
As mentioned above, the Arizona Coyotes had a tough opening schedule to start the new season.
With the game time at 3, Mitchell beat Niemi from the left circle at 8:11 to give Colorado its first lead of the game. The Coyotes set the tempo early and fired on all cylinders. “We’ve won two-games. There’s a lot of hockey left”. And it clearly looks like his shot hasn’t lost a step.
They will host the streaking Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night in the home opener at Consol Energy Center.
It took a game and a half for Phil Kessel to finally earn his first goal as a Pittsburgh Penguins player, but when it arrived it did so with ferocious speed.
The Coyotes got on the board first at the 5-minute mark of the second period. The rookies played well and Mike Smith was on his game.
Two wins won’t put the Coyotes in the playoffs, nor will is drastically change expectations for the season. Sprong is confident that he will be able to learn from and build on this experience. With many stars on the ice for the opposing team, this game looked to be a high scoring affair. “Although the Penguins have launched 65 shots on goal through two games, Crosby doesn’t have any of them.The lone shot attempt with which he has been credited was blocked, and even if he’s focused on setting up his linemates, Kunitz and Kessel, Crosby knows he has to get off more shots”.
NOTES: Varlamov finished with 30 saves. Tippett wanted to start G Mike Smith in both games and eventually made a decision to do just that but was anxious about fatigue.
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Tippett might have a harder time containing a fan base that was steeling itself for the worst and now must try to keep its collective head from exploding as it waits for the next game Wednesday in Anaheim.
