A 3-1 lead was a luxury the Chicago Blackhawks could not handle on Sunday night.
In the first period of their match with the visiting Arizona Coyotes, the Hawks did everything right and had a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Conor Garland had a regulation goal and marker in skills competition – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Jonathan Toews scored with clean ice in the game with just 53 seconds gone in the game. Alex DeBrincat and Dominik Kubalik followed on for the three goals.
“Obviously, it was a tough stretch there, but I think I could’ve scored a bunch of goals during that stretch too,” DeBrincat said of his 12-game goal drought from Nov. 10-Dec. 2. “I hit a few posts, and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. Just keep working hard and not taking anything for granted.”
Christian Fischer scored for the Coyotes in the first period.
Darcy Kuemper then went to work and made 26 saves to keep the Blackhawks off the board the rest of the way as the Coyotes rallied with two goals in the middle frame and defeated Chicago, 4-3, after the skills competition.
“Our PK’s always great,” Kuemper said. “We’re confident when we’re short. You never want to be down 4-on-3 late, but those guys did an incredible job in front of me. We were able to kill it off and hang in there.”
Carl Soderberg and Conor Garland scored in the second period.
“We had some guys that just needed to play better,” Arizona coach Rick Tocchet said of the first period. “I just told them, there’s really no system thing, we just have some guys who have to play better, and they did. That was basically it.”
Nick Schmaltz and Garland scored in the skills competition to get the win.
“I thought in the first we were getting looks, we were just kind of going back and forth,” Schmaltz said. “Their top guys made some plays; they do that a lot. We stuck with it, kind of turned the game around in the second there.”
[WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Blackhawks highlights]
Robin Lehner made 44 saves in the loss.
Lehner made a save of the year stop in the third period on Clayton Keller.
“Luck. I wouldn’t call it technique,” Lehner said. “No, it’s one of those games they were coming at me all game long.”
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