In Glendale, Alex Galchenyuk and Josh Archibald struck for goals in the middle frame and helped the Arizona Coyotes defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-0.
“That’s how we’ve got to play,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. “We have to play a defend-first, timely-goal, protect-the-middle-of-the-ice type of system. And the guys did that.”
Darcy Kuemper got the shutout for the Yotes – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Darcy Kuemper made 22 saves to get the shutout.
“There wasn’t much out there,” Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews said. “We had our game plan and they had theirs, and we pretty much played right into theirs. They sat back and kind of let us beat ourselves, make a mistake and come the other way.”
The Coyotes improved to 26-27-5.
“It was a big turnaround game for us,” Archibald said. “A good response. We came out, we had a really great start, and that’s something we really wanted to do, and then stuck to our system.”
The Leafs dropped to 36-19-3 and are now in third place in the Atlantic Division, one point back of the Boston Bruins who defeated the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night.
“We’ve had some discussions about our home ice, and we weren’t so worried about what they had on their side,” Arizona forward Derek Stepan said. “We wanted to make sure we got the job done.”
[WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Coyotes highlights]
Frederik Andersen made 27 saves in the loss.
“We could have made adjustments in our game, but we kept doing the same thing over and over again, so they outworked us,” Matthews said. “At think at times during the game they outsmarted us as well.”
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