In Nashville, Lawson Crouse scored twice for the visiting Arizona Coyotes on Monday to help them to a 4-2 win over the Predators.
“I think it says a lot about our character,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “We find a way. We’re obviously not the level of a Tampa Bay or something like that, but character-wise, you could see even in the second period, when the wind was against us, we still battled and worked really hard. So, proud of the boys.”
Crouse scored in the middle frame to tie the game, 2-2.
“For me, it started last year with Andre Tourigny coming in and really giving me a chance to play,” Crouse said. “I made the most of it last year and the same thing this year. Obviously, nothing was guaranteed, but [I] came into training camp with the mindset I wanted to continue to grow on that 20-goal season I had last year. Just approaching [it] with a positive attitude, believing in myself.”
His second of the match came in the third to give the Coyotes a 3-2 lead.
Karel Vejmelka made 29 saves in the Arizona win.
“We played really, really good [game] tonight,” Vejmelka said. “It was a very tough game against a really good opponent. I think it was a tough game defensively, and we scored a couple goals, so it’s good.”
The Coyotes moved to 18-28-8.
Nashville took a 2-1 lead in the middle frame on goals from Roman Josi and Colton Sissons .
The Predators dropped to 25-20-6.
“It’s a tough loss,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “It’s disappointing. Had a couple breakdowns where they wound up scoring, but I thought from our opportunity offensively, I thought we had good looks, and unfortunately tonight the puck didn’t go in. We needed three or four to win tonight and we didn’t get it.”
Nick Schmaltz staked the Coyotes to a 1-0 lead in the first period on a one-timer frm the left side.
Christian Fischer added an empty-net goals with 53 seconds left for the 4-2 final.
Kevin Lankinen made 15 saves in the Nashville loss.
“When we had a couple breakdowns, they wound up going in the net,” Hynes said. “When they had breakdowns and we had the looks, they didn’t go in tonight.”
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