In Tempe, the aspirations of the Nashville Predators took a hit on Thursday night in a 4-1 loss to the Coyotes.
Ivan Prosvetov made 39 saves to backstop Arizona to the win.
Prosvetov was called up from the Tucson Roadrunners of the American Hockey League around noon on Thursday.
“I was working on my bike and was expecting to go to [play at] Milwaukee, and they called me and said `You’re playing tonight,'” Prosvetov said. “I said, `OK, I’m ready.’ It was exciting news.”
Brett Ritchie scored in his first game with the Coyotes to make it 1-0 in the first period.
“That’s just the hockey gods,” said Ritchie, who had six goals in 34 games with the Flames. “They give you a bounce early. That seems to always happen, guys playing in their first game score on their first shot.”
Arizona moved to 23-32-10 on their second straight win.
“I think the fact Ivan was called up today brought a little bit of urgency into our room, [because] we rely on the other two (Karel Vejmelka and Connor Ingram) so much,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “You saw it in the first 50 minutes, we were way more stingy defensively and we did a lot of good things.”
Nashville trail the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card in the Western Conference by six points, and missed a chance to close the gap.
“We had some looks, but I just thought they had a little bit more edge to their game,” Nashville coach John Hynes said.
Barrett Hayton and Jack McBain hit 49 seconds apart in the third period to balloon the lead to 3-0 for the Coyotes.
Cody Glass trimmed the deficit to 3-1 with two minutes left on the clock, but it was too little too late for the Preds.
“We had a couple of clips of [Prosvetov], but it’s just another goalie where you’ve got to get in his eyes,” Glass said. “You can’t make it easy on him…Finally, in the third period, we started to get some shots through with screens. [But] he had a good game.”
Nick Schmaltz added an empty-net goal to seal the win.
Juuse Saros made 39 saves in the Nashville loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.