In Glendale, the Arizona Coyotes continued to be a nagging problem for anyone who wants to clinch a wild card spot in the Western Conference.
On Sunday night, Darcy Kuemper made 39 saves to shut out the visiting Minnesota Wild, 4-0.
Darcy Kuemper got the shutout for the Coyotes – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“He looks big in the net, and calm,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said of Kuemper, who made his 20th consecutive start. “A lot of guys are feeding off him. He’s calm on the off days, he’s calm during practice, and he’s calm during games. That exudes a lot of confidence to your players.”
The Coyotes are just one point back of the Colorado Avalanche for the second wild card spot in the west.
“We need some help,” Kuemper said. “We need Colorado to lose, but we feel if we win these final three games, we have a good chance.”
Alex Galchenyuk opened the scoring in the first period.
Josh Archibald struck twice, once on an empty net, for the home side and Vinnie Hinostroza potted a second empty-net goal.
“It’s huge to be able to put four goals up,” Archibald said. “Two were empty net goals, but nobody looks at that at the end of the year, they just look at how many. So it’s really nice.”
[WATCH: All Wild vs. Coyotes highlights]
Devan Dubnyk made 19 saves in the loss.
“We played really well in the second,” Wild forward Eric Staal said. “It was a tough one to give up there with a minute left. It was a period we had it going. But you’ve got to find a way to score goals and we didn’t do a good enough job to get a couple past [Kuemper].”
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