In Glendale, Nick Schmaltz scored in the middle frame on Monday to blunt a rally by the Montreal Canadiens. His strike gave the Coyotes a 4-2 lead en route to a 5-2 win over the Habs.
“I thought we got off to a good start. We made a lot of plays with the puck and played with a lot of confidence,” Schmaltz said. “It’s good to see, and it’s good to get a tough win for our team.”
Karel Vejmelka made 24 saves in the Arizona win.
Rem Pitlick and Ryan Poehling (power play) scored for the Canadiens.
The Coyotes improved to 9-24-4.
Janis Moser also scored for Arizona to give them a 3-1 lead in the middle frame.
“Obviously, we’re not in the position we want to be in, but we still want to bring it every night and set the bar high and make sure we’re not taking any nights off,” Schmaltz said. “It may not be this year that we’re successful in the standings, but we want to play the right way and keep building as an organization.”
Travis Boyd and Johan Larsson staked the Coyotes to a 2-0 lead.
“We started really strong in the first and after we took the lead 2-0, maybe we slowed down a little bit there,” Coyotes assistant Mario Duhamel said. “But besides that 10 minutes of that first, we came back strong in the second and third to shut them down.”
Clayton Keller added a late empty-net goal for the 5-2 final.
Cayden Primeau got the start for the Canadiens and made 12 saves through two periods of play, he was given the hook in the second intermission.
“Changing the momentum a little bit,” Montreal head coach Dominique Ducharme said. “Sometimes just spark a team. We cannot say it was [Primeau’s] fault, but we wanted to see Montembeault in the third and see what would happen.”
Sam Montembeault, who made six saves in the third period.
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