In Edmonton, Andre Burakovsky scored with just under three minutes left in regulation to give the Colorado Avalanche a 3-2 lead they would not relinquish for a 2-0 series lead over the Arizona Coyotes On Friday afternoon.
Philipp Grubauer made 30 saves to get the win.
“It makes it a lot easier that the guys are dialed in and keeping the shots to the outside,” Grubauer said. “Today it was a little more difficult than the last game, but I think everybody did a great job and we walked away with the victory. I’m not looking ahead any further. You’re only as good as your last game.”
Clayton Keller and Michael Grabner broke through for the Coyotes.
“I’m proud of the way they played,” Arizona head coach Rick Tocchet said. “They responded, they were in their faces. That’s more like the way we’ve got to play consistently. At the end of the day, we played a good hockey game. We could have won that hockey game. You’ve got to go down swinging, and we were in the game.
“Obviously, the last goal we’re not happy with, but I’d rather play that way. Get in their face, get up and challenge [them]. We didn’t get the result, but I liked the way we played. We’re not backing off.”
Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Jost also scored for the Avs.
“Nobody feels like they have to dominate,” MacKinnon said. “We’re all trying to chip in. We have such a deep team and we’re ready, hopefully, for a long run. To do that, we need all four lines to be going and they were today.”
It’s a quick turn around for the teams as Game 3 is on Saturday.
We knew they were going to come really hard,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “You read the comments from their coach and from their players about what they felt like that they did or didn’t do or needed to do coming into this game. They played hard, they played real well.
“We needed to ramp up our competitiveness certainly in our defending. I never really felt like we played as well as we could for any large proportion of the game. We know we have to be better than that if we want to win tomorrow.”
[WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Avalanche Game 2 highlights]
Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves in the loss.
“We all know we’ve got to bring the same effort and another five percent tomorrow,” Grabner said. “Can’t really dwell on the loss here. For myself, just trying to do what I can; help the team out. As long as the puck’s going in, it’s great. But we’ve got to get some wins here.”
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