A three-game losing skid, albeit overtime losses, for the Colorado Avalanche came to an end Saturday afternoon with a 5-2 win over the resurgent Arizona Coyotes.
Blake Comeau, Tyson Barrie, Carl Soderberg and Tyson Jost scored for the Avs who moved into the second wild card spot with the St Louis Blues thrashing the Los Angeles Kings Saturday.
“It was nice for me to get that goal,” Jost said. “It was a nice play by [Tyson] Barrie. He got a puck on net and I saw it hanging in the air. I took a swing at it, happy it went in.”
Mikko Rantanen struck once and added two assists in the win.
“We had a great start, but we didn’t do a good job after that,” Barrie said. “Maybe we thought we were feeling it a bit more than we were, that [goals] were going to keep coming easily. It was imperative that we play big-boy hockey.”
Jonathan Bernier got the start for the Avs but was taken out of the game midway through the third period after taking a shot off the helmet; he made 22 saves during his time in the crease.
Bernier was returning to the lineup after a 10-game absence for concussion recovery.
Semyon Varlamov mopped up for Bernier and made four saves.
Colorado improved to 36-24-8 with the win but need to keep winning now to stay ahead of the Kings.
Richard Panik and Christian Dvorak were Arizona’s goal scorers.
“We were in pretty good control and, obviously, the penalty killed us,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “Kind of a bouncy puck in front of our net.”
[WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Avalanche highlights]22 saves) halfway
Darcy Kuemper made 26 saves for the Coyotes in taking the loss.
“They’re battling for the playoffs and we don’t want to just play the games for fun, we want to compete. Too bad we came up short,” Arizona’s Richard Panik said.
Arizona had been 9-2-2 coming into the game and were playing solid hockey for the first time all season.
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