In Tempe, the Coyotes scored on three of their first nine shots in the game, all the first period, to take a 3-0 lead over the visiting St Louis Blues on Saturday night, en route to a 4-1 win.
It was Arizona’s fourth straight win.
Connor Ingram made 31 saves in the win.
“That’s our best first period of the year, no doubt about it,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “With and without the puck we had urgency, we had a plan and we were focused. I really liked our first period, no doubt about it.”
The Coyotes improved to 12-9-2.
With 40 seconds gone in the game, Michael Carcone scored to give the Coyotes a 1-0 lead.
“Obviously there’s a lot of hockey left after that, but that’s tough to give up one early and then three in the first,” Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. “That’s just the way it goes sometimes. You give up a few early, the team is hot, the goalie is hot. Credit to him, he made some good saves.”
True, but Nick Schmaltz pushed the lead to 2-0 at 15:49 off a power play marker.
Matias Maccelli ballooned the lead to 3-0 with38 seconds left in the first.r.
“Another game where we’ve got to stop the momentum before it ends up three [quick] goals like it did tonight,” St Louis’ Torey Krug said. “We had about 10 minutes there of bad hockey 10 to 15 minutes of OK hockey and 35 minutes of good hockey, but it’s not good enough.”
The Blues dropped to 12-10-1.
“We wanted this game,” said Maccelli. “We got away a little from what we wanted to do in the second and third [periods], but we got the job done. It’s more fun when you win and `Ingy’ has been unreal.”
Brandon Saad was the lone striker for the Blues, his goal came midway through the third to cut the deficit to 3-1.
“They were on their toes skating and we were a little slow in reacting,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We didn’t have good sticks on some plays, and it cost us two goals. We didn’t come out skating good enough. They had the puck too much in the first period. I thought we recovered and played two good periods but have to find a way to score more goals.”
Alex Kerfoot hit an empty net at 18:45 for the 4-1 final count.
Joel Hofer made 18 saves in the loss.
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