In Glendale, Hunter Miska made 16 saves to help the Colorado Avalanche defeat the Arizona Coyotes, 3-2, on Friday night.
“Obviously, it was a little nerve-wracking, but I thought the team was playing super well in front of me,” Miska said. “I just had to stop the puck, and the good thing is we came up with two points.”
The Coyotes did not generate any offense until the third period when they struck twice within 46 seconds.
“It’s kind of frustrating to see the pattern we’ve had the last three games (falling behind 3-0); obviously, we woke up, but a little too late,” the Coyotes’ Niklas Hjalmarsson said. “We’ve got to play with more urgency.”
Phil Kessel and Drake Caggiula scored when the clock had wound down to 98 seconds left in the game.
“It was super fun to get a win against those guys, and my goal tonight was to come back and get points from the big club as well,” Miska said. “Especially against my old goalie partner; it was a good goalie battle between him and me.”
Mikko Rantanen staked the Avs to a 1-0 lead with a goal early in the middle frame.
“I think we earned the win with the way we played, we were the better team,” Rantanen said. “We didn’t give up a lot until the last two minutes.”
Andre Burakovsky extended the lead to 2-0 with a goal at 6:04 of the third.
Nazem Kadri potted the game-winner at the 11 minute mark of the third.
“Obviously, losing back-to-back games is not ideal for this group, so we wanted to bounce back in a positive way,” Kadri said. “For the most part, we were in control of that game, and it was nice for [Miska] to get his first NHL win.”
Adin Hill made 25 saves in the loss.
“They’re a better team than us, and we just can’t have passengers here,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “They’re a fast-skating team and we have some deficiencies, we know that, but you have to compete. … We had too many guys with zeros.”
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