In Glendale, the Arizona Coyotes waited for the Minnesota Wild to take their foot off the gas and scored five unanswered goals to win, 5-2, on Saturday night.
Darcy Kuemper settled down after giving up two goals and made 32 saves to get the win.
Matt Dumba and Jordan Greenway gave the Wild the quick two-goal lead in the first period.
“We didn’t have the physical energy, the emotional energy that we’ve seen (lately) from our group,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “When they got back into it, we never had that push back. … It didn’t seem like we had the life to come back.”
Lawson Crouse started the Coyotes’ rally with a goal in the middle frame.
“We haven’t been very happy with our starts and that’s been an issue of late, so we had to buckle down and we knew it,” Crouse said. “We weren’t happy, but after that we came out and played a great hockey game. … We’ve got to keep playing this way, with the same intensity and the same compete level.”
Tyler Pitlick scored twice in the rally.
“It’s a huge win for us … a huge two points,” Pitlick said. “Minnesota is ahead of us right now (in the Honda West Division), so every game is important. We’ve got to get two points every night, if we can.”
Conor Garland had a power play strike and two points in the win for Arizona.
“We just got back and attacked,” Garland said. “Four bad periods in a row was enough. … I liked our response. We didn’t sit back and wait for them to come back at us, we kept going and going.”
Jakob Chychrun also scored for Arizona.
“I think I felt 1,000 pounds lighter there (after scoring),” Crouse said. “… We just wanted to come out and attack, attack, attack — and we did. At that point we just had to lock it in.”
Cam Talbot made 26 saves in the loss.
“We tried to make a push there at the end, but it was too late,” the Wild’s Jared Spurgeon said. “When you’re trailing a game, you’ve got to chase, and that’s what we had to do.”
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