In Edmonton, Colorado Avalanche shut out the Arizona Coyotes, 3-0 Wednesday in Game I of their series.
It was more than a goalie shut out, Philippthe Grubauer needed to make just 14 saves for the victory.
“It’s nothing that we didn’t expect to be coming our way, to be honest with you, coming into this series,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “Arizona’s a real tight-checking team, they’re always above pucks, they make you work for every inch of ice that you can get. And it’s not easy to get to the net on them, and when you do make enough plays and do enough good things to get a good scoring chance, you run into Kuemper.
“We just wanted to make sure we were doing enough to make it difficult on Kuemper, that we were getting to the front of the net, that we were making good decisions with the puck and not start trying to force things, and I thought our guys did a nice job of it.”
The Avs swamped the Coyotes’ offense.
“It might be a little bit too many shots, but at the same time it kind of felt like we were keeping them on the outside,” Arizona’s Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “They were coming from the blue line and we know [Kuemper] is a good goalie and he’s going to stop them if he sees the pucks. At the same time, we got to create more. I thought we backed off a little too much and maybe gave them a little too much respect.”
Mikko Rantanen, J.T. Compher and Nazem Kadri struck for the Avs’ goals.
“I’m out there with some pretty good players, so I just try to find some soft areas in the ice, just to get open, whether it’s a rebound or a tip or whatever the case is,” Kadri said. “I just try to find some space. I was able to get in front of the net. I think Cale teed it up, and I was able to bang in the rebound.”
All three goals came in the third period.
“We just wanted to get some traffic in front of Kuemper,” Avs’ Erik Johnson said. “He’s a real good goalie. He’s probably the rock of their team. He’s played well all year. He’s played well in the qualifiers. Part of the game plan was just to get some guys in front of his eyes, make it a little bit difficult on him, but for the most part, we just stuck with it. Sometimes it’s not pretty. Sometimes it’s just a couple rebounds like you saw there to get the job done. But from my vantage point, we stuck with it and showed patience and maturity.”
[WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Avalanche Game 1 highlights]
Darcy Kuemper made 37 saves in the loss.
“I’m just disappointed in the club because of a big opportunity,” Arizona head coachRick Tocchet said. “We had a terrible practice yesterday. I really don’t want to get into more, the players know how I feel. Darcy Kuemper kept us in, that’s basically it. There’s nothing really else to say.”
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